As a long-time member of Sydney Metropolitan Wildlife Services and a volunteer animal carer, he can get a call at any time to rescue animals like snakes, possums and kangaroos to care for before releasing them into the wild.

The 16-year-old is now putting his efforts into helping the orang-utans on the island of Borneo.

After a two-week holiday there with his family he found the rainforests, the primates' habitat, were being destroyed for palm oil plantations.

Bens said: ``An area the size of three football fields is cut down every minute in Borneo, and because of that, 3000 orang-utans are killed each year.''

Most of the world's orang-utans are in Borneo and the Indonesian island of Sumatra where loss of habitat, the illegal pet trade and tourism are threats.

Ben plans to raise more than $2000 for the Borneo Orangutan Survival organisation that cares for orphan orang-utans and buys back rainforest to be set aside as nature reserves.

``I know this is not much considering what needs to be done, but it's a start,'' he said. ``Once I'm there I want to volunteer at the animal refuge in [the Malaysian state of] Sabah and try to talk to the locals about conservation.

``I know they are only trying to make a living, but that's also destroying wildlife.

``If they conserved the forest and focused on ecotourism, they would probably make more money.''

Donate to 0408404499 or contact Borneo Orangutan Survival office in Victoria on 0398770377 or

orangutans.com.au.