Director
Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme

Dr. Ian Singleton is Director of Conservation at PanEco Foundation and Scientific Director for the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. He was formerly Senior orangutan keeper at Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust and Animal keeper at Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Zoological Society of London. He studied at the University of Kent (PhD, Ecology; orangutan ranging behavior, 1996 – 2000) and the University of Sunderland (BSc(hons), Environmental Science, 1984 – 1987). On completion of his thesis, he joined with the Swiss-based PanEco Foundation and Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari in 2001 to establish the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme. In 2020 he received the distinguished honor of Officer of the Order of the British Empire. This highly esteemed award is in recognition of Ian’s more than 30 years of work and dedication to the protection of orangutans and their habitat in Indonesia.

Ian is kept busy working to confiscate illegal pet orangutans and return them to a life in the wild, in field research and monitoring of the remaining wild Sumatran orangutan population, and in efforts to protect their habitat.