Willie Smits

Founder
Masarang Foundation

Dr Willie Smits is one of South East Asia’s leading sustainable climate solutions developers and trained forester, microbiologist, conservationist, animal rights activist, wilderness engineer and social entrepreneur. He has lived in Indonesia since 1985 and is an Indonesian citizen. For over thirty years Smits has worked for the survival of orangutans, during which time he established the Masarang Foundation as an Indonesian environmental non-profit foundation. Its vision isPreserving nature through the empowerment of local people and its work involves protection of existing natural forests, restoration of degraded lands through agroforestry and biodiversity reforestation, creating sustainable jobs through zero waste production systems for local people. The Masarang Foundation set up the world’s first palm sugar factory running on waste geothermal energy and organized thousands of sugar palm tappers, planted over 30 million indigenous trees, manages a sea turtle project and a huge wildlife rescue centre for confiscated protected wildlife. Since 2020 he has been working with Space4Good, a geospatial application development social enterprise, and Arsari Enviro Industri to develop Re-Forest-ER, an integrated agroforestry monitoring and management platform. The platform offers insights to facilitate informed decision-making and conservation for project developers worldwide. The project has been recognized by the Geospatial World Awards and is currently a part of the XPRIZE Rainforest challenge.

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