The Trailer

On the descent into Borneo from the one hour plane ride from Jakarta, I slipped off my seat belt and slid into the empty middle seat next to me to get a closer peek at this island, third largest in the world, from above. The buckle in the seat I moved to was unusable because one end was large and one end small and did not fit together. The rattling of the plane told me we were in for a bumpy landing so I stuck to my functioning seat. The look out the window did not give me the feeling I expected anyway on approach to a place that conjures visions of the lush tropical rainforest, alive with wild sounds and rich colors. The view from above showed the dark green areas of a dense mature forest, simply sliced away as if with a scalpel, and left in clumsy fragments. And in the wounds created were the startings of neat rows of palms, gnawing into the thicket of ancient growth that is this 140 million year old peat forest, turning it into the life-choking cancer that a monoculture is. Between the useless seatbelt and the haphazard hacking of this irreplaceable ecosystem, I immediately got the sense: this place makes its own rules, and adherence to common sense is not one of them. 

More clearing underway

The story being played out here in Borneo, I came to decide, is not unlike what is happening all over the planet: profits being put before life. It is however happening faster than anywhere here because the government lets the land go to the interests of industry cheap. The fact that Borneo is only one of two places left in the world that a creature that we share 97% of our DNA exists just makes the story all that more compelling, and sad.  All the world over, natural places are abolished in place of short-sighted, quick financial gains, supplying a developing world with more and more stuff it doesn’t necessarily need. Species are constantly lost, most ones we’ve never even heard of. But here in Borneo, that destruction is on a fast track, and the species that is at the climax of the crisis is the orangutan. And at one point we may have to accept, we chose an array of convenience products, electronics, and hardwood flooring over their survival. Because the loss of their home is directly related to the growth of industries like palm fruit oil plantations, mining, and logging to keep up with the demand of the products we buy. 

This is the view now: 2014

The red circle shows the part of Borneo, or Kalimantan as the Indonesian portion is called, that I visited. (73% of the island is Indonesia.) This is where Orangutan Foundation International operates, caring for wild born, ex-captive orangutans in its mission to re-release them into the forest where they belong. You can see the challenge in this with how fast the forest is disappearing, and after staying with OFI for three weeks at 4 different locations, I came to see how almost impossible this work is. I kept thinking of the dog and cat shelters in the United States-Thousands of animals crammed in a small space without enough homes for them. And of deer whose habitat is also so fragmented that they are forced onto suburban roads and into people’s backyards where they are considered nuisances. It is the same for orangutans. The once captive and orphaned orangutans that are being rehabilitated for wild release by OFI are awaiting sufficient protected forest to become available so they can once again be free in their natural setting. And the ones that have remained wild are increasingly being pushed out of their forest homes as more and more acres of forests are felled for logging and planted as palm plantations. They are literally starving to death or are killed as they seek food in inappropriate (and insufficient) places like palm plantations and villages. Mother orangutans are murdered when they come into conflict with industry, and babies are spared, only to be taken into the illegal pet trade. When they are finally confiscated or surrendered, they come to OFI. 

It took me three weeks to understand everything as I do now about what is happening in Borneo, and I am very grateful that my group of volunteers was lucky enough to have the diverse exposure to different levels of OFI’s work and to the local landscape of villages that we did. My Borneo story began when Ruth, a 28 year old Canadian woman who had been volunteering and interning with OFI for 4 years- and whom I immediately was in awe of- picked us up from the airport and we were driven to the strange out-of-place Borneo Mall a few minutes away. This small modern shopping center is basically a Walmart-type grocery store with some fast food stands and a few other stores (think Lackawanna Plaza local Montclair friends). It was not the typical Borneo-experience to be had, but as outsiders, we could actually afford to pick up some groceries there and have a meal (many locals could not). In comparison to the village marketplaces we went to later in the trip, I see these two shopping experiences in context to what the term “developing world” means. The fancy air conditioned department store where you can get almost anything is considered progress. But I can only see the other side of how destructive this lifestyle is because I come from a place where I’ve always had that. 

How can I explain to the people I met whose entire diet consisted of rice, dried fish, and whatever they grow in their gardens that this lifestyle is a trap that will make them sick, and cause them to work endlessly to afford more and more of these things that are so good at convincing them that they need? I think some Americans are finally just beginning to see the cost to their peace and happiness what overconsumption does- and many of us are wanting to go back to that small local market. And I kept thinking, if we scaled back to consume only what we need, and people like those in Borneo raised their standard of living to have more of what they need- then maybe, just maybe the Earth can support us all -including animals in the rainforest. But that’s not the way it is going. The developing world is heading to the overconsumption of plastic goods, and a litany of products for every part of their body and home- laden with palm-oil and chemicals. And I certainly do not deny any people certain conveniences and luxuries that we’ve always enjoyed, but after sitting in the airport and seeing western-style commercials for a bunch of crap and seeing this mall, I feel like these people are being dupped into the slavery that this lifestyle of wanting more than you need demands. 

After the mall we were told to settle in for a long ride. It was four hours total- two on a wide dirt road, passing village after village, weaving passed motorbike after motorbike (generally with 1-3 passengers) . Then, in order to get to the camp we would be staying at- a camp that was the newest release site for ex-captive orangutans back into a reasonably-sized section of forest- we had to go two hours through a palm plantation, or as it is locally referred: The Palm. The sense of being in The Palm is that everything is artificial: A fake forest of trees planted in rows evenly spaced by ditches where only two kinds wildlife can live- rats and snakes;  the barrack-style villages where plantation workers and their families live seem like a sterile life-support machine just barely keeping them alive, compared to the real village communities we had passed before we entered the guard gates. The faces of the people I saw working or sleeping on the side of the road did not even seem real. I felt we had to be quiet when passing through, like this was enemy territory. Like we were being allowed to use these roads to get to our camp, that existed to save the animals directly affected by the business that went on here. This is where orangutans are murdered. This is the remains of their home. And we had to drive TWO HOURS through it in order to get to a select piece of forest that is suitable enough for their new home. Immediately when we got out of The Palm we went through a few hundred feet of a burnt out section of forest, and instantly into this new home, Camp Seluang Mas. Talk about too close for comfort. 

The first thing I saw when we arrived at Camp Seluang Mas was this:

Two little girls sitting with a mother and baby orangutan. I could not get to my camera fast enough to capture this incredible scene. And my head spun with all I had taken in in the past five or so hours. The Mall, The Palm, and these generations of young human and young orangutan. And in my mind’s eye, it all was like a  movie trailer for the entire story of human life on planet Earth- leaving the viewer wondering “Will one species outdo the other? Can both exist in harmony?”