Yet Wallace had already accomplished some invaluable work during his six-year journey through the Amazon and had discovered countless new animal species. In Borneo and across the Malay-Indonesian islands, Wallace moved through the dangerous territory of the Dayaks, the local headhunters. He found a way to connect with them and even convinced them to help him collect specimens. Wallace’s pioneering discoveries eventually became part of evolutionary theory.

Wallace recorded his theories while suffering from malaria and sent them to Charles Darwin in England, who was already quite well known at the time. One year later, Darwin claimed he had reached the same conclusions independently and presented the sensational theory of evolution. Wallace was left with only the posthumous reputation of having pioneered ‘biogeography’. Today, many historians believe that Darwin took the most important insights about evolutionary theory from Wallace’s fieldwork in the rainforests — arguably the greatest theft in the history of science.

While Darwin was becoming a superstar, Wallace continued to survive in Borneo by hunting orangutans, which were in high demand in Europe. Raising a baby orangutan whose mother he had shot changed Wallace’s thinking completely. Yet hunting orangutans continues to this day.

Since 2003, Danish-born Lone Dröscher-Nielsen has been fighting to protect the last orangutans. She cares for about 250 orangutans at her veterinary centre near Palangka Raya, on the edge of the rainforest in Borneo — 50 of them babies. The Dutch Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation and its founder Willie Smits fund Lone and her team of over 70 workers at the orangutan sanctuary. Most orangutan babies have lost their mothers because the Dayaks no longer hunt humans but increasingly target ‘forest people’ — as ‘orangutan’ translates in the Dayak language. The lucky ones reach Lone Dröscher-Nielsen’s camp, where they are trained to return to the forest, or what remains of it.”