Dr Marc Ancrenaz was born in France and has a M.Sc. from the Veterinary Medicine Institute of Tropical Areas in France. He has extensive experience in wildlife research, medicine, population management, and wildlife management policy formulation.
Marc is the Scientific Director of the Hutan non-government organisation , the co-director of the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project (KOCP) and a scientific adviser for the Sabah Wildlife Department. KOCP was created in 1998 to research orangutan adaptability to habitat degradation. The team soon realized that although good conservation practices must be based on solid science, scientific research is not enough to achieve good conservation results. In order to contribute to protecting and saving the orangutans and elephants living in Kinabatangan and in Sabah, they thus switched their scientific approach to a more holistic one by incorporating the needs and aspirations of the local communities.
Today, the team is made up of about 50 local research assistants, all hailing from local villages. They are active in orangutan and elephant research and conflict mitigation, law enforcement, education and awareness, community development, reforestation, Global Information System (GIS) and other tasks.
Marc enjoys meeting with people from all over the world, with different aspirations and views about conservation. He loves spending time with the ranger teams who originate from the villages and being in the forest he works so hard to protect.
