Willie Smits

The rumours were true and today Willie Smits was standing upstairs by the bar as we returned from our field trip to Km 23 (a sun bear education center separate from Samboja Lestari). Jesse was the first to shake his hand and run up to me in complete celebrity shock. All the time that we have spent talking/reading/pondering over Willie’s visions and progress truly makes him the biggest celebrity in our conservation world. He is here at Samboja Lestari with a group of researchers who are attempting to beginning harvesting sugar palm on the Samboja Lestari land.

I had very little previous knowledge regarding sugar palm so it was very interested in hearing what it is about. Here are some things that I learned:

- sugar palm can only be planted in second growth forest (ie. Reforestated areas)

- sugar palm cannot be grown as a monocrop (therefore it must be planted within a natural forest, thus contributing to the biodiversity)

- sugar palm grows best on slopes (it will not take up any of the land that could be used for other agriculture that requires flat land)

- the sugar extracted from the sugar palm is extremely low on the glycemic index thus making it a much healthier alterative to other forms of sugar

- the extraction process does not harm the tree

Willie and his team want to invest in sugar palm because it could give good incentive to continue more reforestation projects since there is economic value in the sugar palm. Could this be solution to drive more projects such as Samboja Lestari on a big enough scale that eventually we will be able to reintroduce the orangutan and sun bear in these habitats?

In the evening we all sat around as Willie gave us a talk on the projects that he is working on at the moment. His visions are drastic and big. Some are very pessimistic regarding his ideas and feel that they are too unrealistic. However the truth happens to be : what else does a place such as Borneo have to lose. Willie is tackling corruption in the highest levels of the government to finally bring the power back into the local people. I left the meeting with visions in my head and somewhat of a framework of what we need to do help implament these changes.

We are so lucky to have had the opportunity to talk to Willie and ask him questions. It seems that as we go along on this trip we are constantly being thrown these incredible unexpected oportunities. All the conservationist that we have met so far are very excited that we are here and want to provide us with as many opportunities as possible.

Tomorrow is our last day here at Samboja Lestari , and for the first time my group has a good storyboard for our final documentary. But there is still so much that we are going to experience and who knows what we will discover in the next 6 weeks.