Wow, I do love Sandakan in Sabah. The jungle life is great. Peaceful and quiet. All you hear are the birds chirping in the lush trees. This is the place to meditate before I start work tomorrow.
Left Sandakan for the work location in a village called Sukau about 2 hour drive away. Very quiet along the Kinabatangan river. The indigenous people here are called the Orang Sungei meaning the river people. The community is actually making money from tourism. The group I am volunteering with is called Ape (Animal Projects through Environmental education). They employ local people and use local accommodations and resources.
For the first week we will be maintaining trees which have been planted. Mark, our leader, explained that planting trees is just the start. Maintenence is most important because without it the trees wouldn’t survive. So we machete the grass near them, prune the branches and take off the creepy crawlers that will suffocate them.
Mark, our leader and guide is very knowledgeable. He is a walking encyclopedia. Lots of information and i have learned a lot from him. He’s done many talks at conferences in regards to Orangutan and wildlife environment. I think we are luckybto have him working alongside us.
We work for 3 hrs in the morning then rest, have lunch then after another rest we travel down the river spotting what we can. It is not real hard, but the heat is something else. It is about 86 degrees Fahrenheit with like 69% humidity and no wind. Feels much hotter than Hawaii.
The reason for planting trees is to replenish the forested land due to logging and the removal of the original forest with palm oil plantations. The Orang Utans (the Malay way of spelling – Orang meaning people and Utan meaning forest – the People of the Forest) need trees to live in. They need to eat the fruit from other trees not only palm trees. So we are planting a variety of trees to produce needed nutrition for many species not just orang utans. There are also proboscis, pig tailed and long tailed monkeys just to name a few. Every night the orang utan builds a nest to sleep in just for one night. For the next night they build a new nest, imagine that! They break the branches and nest in the most supportive part of the tree. Only one gorilla and her baby, if she has, per nest.
There is a lack of trees due to palm oil plantation and former lumber misuse. This area of Sukau is located within what is called the “Corridor of Life” and is protected from further forestry and palm oil plantations. Palm oil does bring Malaysia revenue so in that way it is a good thing. Instead of boycotting palm oil we should look for sustainable certified companies. Mark told of an Application that can tell you if a product is using certified sustainable procedures. It is called PalmOil Scan. I encourage everyone to try it out. It gives ratings of companies and products that use palm oil.
The organization Ape and others like it are working to reforest the land and make it sustainable for orang utans and other species who live in the forest while also working to educate the public.
Humans have taken away too much of their land and replaced it with profitable Palm oil plantations. It is hard for the orang utans to build their nests in those trees and it is hard to travel from one tree to another. Malaysia is now trying to limit commercial use and have designated some areas as protected. This area is one of those. It is quite amazing to see conservation in action.
