Wanariset

Yesterday we arrived at Samboja Lestari. Its about an hour drive outside of Balikpapan. I was very excited to finally see Samboja Lestari because we have read and heard so much about it. Eight years, a man by the name of Willie Smits followed through with a vision that he had been working on for quite some time and started to replant 1800 hectares of previously logged grassland. He has planted over 1300 different tree species and is closely monitoring the progress of the forest and measuring everything from the changes in biodiversity to the measurements of the carbon found in the soil. The place is quite incredidible and it was hard to believe that the lush green forest is less than 10 years old. The vision that Willie had has become a reality and everyday he is working towards furthering that vision. When Willie was trying to get funding for the project initially, he had no support. No one believed that he could reforest a grassland. Rather than giving up he took a different approach to getting his funding. Due to his awareness of the issues that orangutans are facing due to habitat destruction, he joined up with some other men and started BOS (the Borneo Orangutan Survival Fund). By using the powerful image of displaced orangutans, he was able to get his replanting project going by explaining that he will be using the replanted land as habitat for the orangutans and as a project to eventually re-introduce these orangutans into their natural habitat.

Eight years later they have cared for hundreds of orangutans and made great progress in study these animals. From the year 1992-2002 they were able to release orangutans but unfortunately since then there has not been another release. There simply is no habitat for these animals left. 45% of the orangutans habitat in Kalimantan has been destroyed in the past decade.

When we arrived at Samboja Lodge, we were all blown away by the beauty of it. They have created this sort of eco-tourism idea to bring income to the area. One of our reasons for coming to Samboja was largely to look at this idea of ecotourism and to evalute if it is being effective to support conservation efforts. Unfortunately through talking to various guest at the lodge, Samboja is not doing enough to provide for their guest and therefor the guest are frustrated and dissapointed. It would not be hard focus a little bit of energy into developed this already incredible area and provide education to the guest rather than leaving the guest pretty much in the dark regarding the going-ons of the lodge.

A man named Peter Karsano joined us for the first couple days of stay at the lodge. Peter is a co-founder of Samboja Lestari along with Willie Smits. It was very generous for him to come out here with us and show us around. He was able to get us permision to visit a place called Wanaranita. Wanaranita is the first location where BOS was able to bring and care for the displaced orangutans during the initial replanting process. The location is now severely overgrown and all the buildings have a feeling that one day everyone just got up and left. The iri feel definitely sent shivers up my spine as we walked through the old medical buildings where the cages lined up with name tags still attached to them. Although we know that a lot of good things happened for the orangutan here, the sight of everything run down empty gave the place a feel of a prison.

At the very back of the property there are still big cages being occupied by orangutans. These orangutans have either Hep A or Tuberculousis or both. They have all been in these cages since they arrived at Wanaranita, and due to all the human contact that they have received they will never be released back into the wild even if there was a suitable area. As we walked around the cages and observed them, you could see the emotion and desperation in their eyes. It feels like they have simply been forgotten about in this tragedy that we, as humans, have done to them. I sat in front of one of the cages and started into this younger looking orangutans eyes. As he stretched is remarkably similar looking hands out towards me through the cage bars, I was brough to tears. These creatures understand. They understand what has happened to them and they understand the future of their lives, and yet they are unable to fight for themselves.

The afternoon spent with those orangutans, holding their hands through the cage bars really affected the way I see this situation. It is not enough to simply care for orangutans. It is our duty to eventually provide them with a quality of life similar if not greater than the one that they previously had. Funding does not to go into taking in more orangutans and caring for them cages. This endangered species needs to be in the wild. Their intelligence cannot be locked away in a cage for their entire lives. Our efforts must go into conserving the little habitat still present, and then into reforresting and recreating habitat for them. The human race has done the damage, and it is our responsibility to attempt the balance out our actions.

It is not only the orangutans that are suffering. Along with everyother species in the rainforest, the sun bear is also severely victimized by habitat destruction. Samboja Lesari also has a sanctuary for sun bears with a similation habitat but unfortunately there are still some sun bears stuck in cages for the rest of their lives due to their inability to be trained to follow the ‘rules’ of the sanctuary. Since there is currently no program in place to reintroduce the sun bears into a habitat, these animals have been severely humanized.

These last few days that I have been able to feel the effects of this habitat destruction first hand through connections made with all these incredible animals. It is hard to feel hope when so much destruction is still happening everyday. Policy making maybe be one of the only options to get this situation under control but unfortuantely it is the hardest to influence.

Hopefully the next few days will bring light to the situation. There is rumour that Willie Smits may be visit Samboja is the next few days, and it would be incredible to meet him!