In Indonesia’s Mentawai Islands, a small Indigenous group is working to protect six primate species found nowhere else on Earth.
Deeply important in Indigenous Mentawai culture, these endemic primates are under growing threat from hunting and deforestation.
Once hunters themselves, the members of Malinggai Uma Tradisional Mentawai now patrol the forest, remove snares, and teach local communities about conservation.
“If we don’t have primates, we don’t have the forest, and if there’s no forest, there’s no Mentawai,” says co-founder Ismael Saumanuk.

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