Rahayu Oktaviani, IPB University Alumnus who Dedicated Her Life Researching Javan Gibbons to Win the Whitley Award 2025
Rahayu Oktaviani, SHut, MSc, an alumnus of IPB University from the Department of Forest Resource Conservation and Ecotourism (KSHE), Faculty of Forestry and Environment (Fahutan) won the Whitley Award 2025.
Ayu, her nickname, was chosen as the recipient of the Whitley Award because of her dedication to preserve the Javan gibbon, one of the world’s endangered primates.
The Whitley Award is an award given by a British charity organization, the Whitley Fund for Nature, to conservationists in countries with high biodiversity, who carry out conservation actions at the local level. For Ayu, receiving the Whitley Award is a dream come true.
“As an alumnus of IPB University, I am definitely proud to get this award, because I learned a lot about conservation at IPB University when I was an undergraduate student. Studying at IPB University opened many of my perspectives on conservation and wildlife species diversity,” Ayu told the team of IPB Public Relations, (5/17).
Ayu’s journey in researching Javan gibbons began in 2008 when she was preparing her thesis. Initially, she wanted to research on orangutans for her final project. But due to limited funds, she was finally directed by her supervisor to research the Javan gibbon in Gunung Halimun Salak National Park, which at that time became her second choice. Ayu received research funding from the collaboration between the KSHE Department of IPB University and Ewha Womans University.
“My research was about the sound behavior of javan gibbons. So, my task was to go into the forest, take samples of Javan gibbon sounds. Well, I didn’t get the sound sample for almost two weeks, but once I heard the sound, the sound of the Javan gibbon became one of the most beautiful sounds I heard in nature. From there, I started to fall in love with it, and then I started to want to learn more about the Javan gibbon,” Ayu said.
Since then, Ayu decided to dig deeper into javan gibbons. For 17 years she has dedicated her life to researching the Javan gibbon, although she has also studied other primates. Eventually, Ayu co-founded Yayasan Konservasi Ekosistem Alam Nusantara (KIARA), a non-profit organization based in Bogor, West Java in 2020.
“Actually, our duty as humans is not only to conserve the Javan gibbon, but all living things including humans themselves. Sometimes there is an assumption that humans are separate creatures from the ecosystem, whereas in my opinion, humans are actually part of the ecosystem,” she said.
“So, there is the task of preserving not only the Javan gibbon, but also many other species. Especially in Indonesia, we have more than 60 types of primates. Imagine if every IPB University alumni has a specification for efforts to conserve each type of primate, it means we can already be self-sufficient as researchers from Indonesia,” She continued.
In addition to receiving the Whitley Award 2025, this 2009 graduate of IPB University has also won other awards. Some of them are Women in Conservation Award 2023 from Denver Zoo, Conservationist Award Dan Kyes Award for Excellence in Conservation Outreach 2022 from America Society of Primatologists (ASP), and Charles Southwick Conservation Education Commitment Award 2020 from International Primatological Society, and many more in the field of conservation. (MHT) (IAAS/KDP)
