“Human in nature is profit-oriented, while animals live just to survive the harsh wild”
My recent trip to Balikpapan, East Kalimantan was a life-changing trip ever. Not only because I went there with my best friends (and we had a blast bonding time after 18 years of friendship), but also because of what I found out after the trip. I’ve mentioned it sometimes on my blog or videos that I’m not an animal buddy and hates mountains, but those didn’t make me dislike this trip at all, even though mostly we were visiting forests and encounter with wildlife. My friend is doing research about why Joko Widodo, the President of Indonesia choose this island to be the next capital city. The three of us flew to Balikpapan, East Kalimantan to find out the answer. Well, we couldn’t really find out the answers, but we found out a sad truth about this island.
2020 did not start pretty well in Indonesia, especially, Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Flood every part of Jakarta on the first day of 2020. It was the first massive flood after 3 years. Probably, you have heard about this, that Indonesia is moving its capital city to Kalimantan island, the second largest island in the Indonesian archipelago. Kalimantan is gifted to have 40.8 million hectares (well, not sure if this number still valid) of tropical forest, becoming the world’s lungs. But, deforestation (which includes illegal loggings and greedy palm oil companies) and modernization play a huge role in reducing the tropical forest. But, this doesn’t make Mr. President take back his plan on moving Indonesia’s capital city to this wide island.
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| A view from the resort. This is what a forest should look like. Well, with higher and denser trees it will be great. |
We visited a wildlife survival center where we can encounter the endemic residents of Kalimantan or Borneo island’s forest, orangutan and the least known endangered sun bear. I knew sun bear as a honey bear ( beruang madu in Indonesian) before, thanks to this visit, I finally knew the official name of this bear species. There are lots of new information that I got after this visit and I’m so grateful for this unforgettable encounter.
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| Sun bear in training their hunting skills. Photo credits to my friend. |
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| Extremely closer look of a sun bear. I trembled and worried that my phone will be their lunch, so this is the best photo I could get. |
Blessed with fertile soil is not always a good thing. Borneo island may not have a volcano, but they have everything else. Palm oil, coal, woods, tasty tropical fruits, and much more. Those natural products made this island a profitable target to be explored. Well, human in nature is profit-oriented, while animals live just to survive the harsh wild. Humans will take chances and will do anything for their needs. This is human nature because that’s how we survived and be different from other creatures. And because this same reason, orangutan habitats were gone and eventually they became an endangered species.
Many of the orangutans in the conservation center were the victim of deforestation and illegally-owned. Deforestation made orangutans puzzled when their home was gone and changed to housing. I just knew that orangutans live in semi-nomad, they build their homes then leave it and build other houses, going around and around like that, then they might come back to their first home. Unfortunately, not many people know about this and thought it’s an open and free space, they burned orangutans’ hardly made houses and changed it to their house or a commercial area. Some people raise orangutan as a pet when their nature is in the wild. It was so devastating that many people in rural areas didn’t know about this.
The conservation is working hand-in-hand with the locals, raising awareness that orangutan is not a pet. The awareness program seems to bear some result, there were no more orangutan get into the conservation for the last 2-3 years with the reason found as a pet. It’s a good sign that the locals are aware of this endangered species and participate actively in the rescuing program.
Well, the 3 hours trail at the survival center brought so much insight for me. I got to realized that Indonesia has so many potentials but sucks at managing it. There are a few facts that I didn’t know about orangutans before. It’s the endemic animals of Indonesia, but not much information that I knew about this animal. A human can transfer illness to orangutans and also the other way around. That’s why we couldn’t interact with the orangutans directly, even though we want to.
Our DNA and their DNA is only 3% different, which is a huge difference in physical form, but psychologically we are practically the same. They can get angry, stressful, crazy, depressed, etc. The ones in the survival center many of them have trauma and will be very hard to live directly in the wild. But not all orangutans can go back to the wild even after joining the program. There are few orangutans that could not go back to the wild because they are severely hurt mentally and physically. The most common cause is baby orangutans were taken away from their mother to be raised as a pet. Just imagine, if your child was taken away from you, how do you feel? Baby orangutans naturally are really protective toward their mother, so taking the baby away as a pet is awful and stressful for both the mother and the baby.
The survival center serves as a training center for the orangutans before they go back to the wild. Because of that, visitors could not interact with them at all. Only authorized personalities and volunteers are the only human being that able to interact with them.I’m really sure when you heard the stories of the orangutans there, you will be very heartbroken. But, on the other side, there are a few bright and lively orangutans that will make you smile.
A few days ago, I got an update on one of the orangutans named Romeo. He seems very normal despite his old age. He could have to go back to the wild, but he is too old, it might be hard for him. The survival center is still watching him, whether if he can go back to the wild or not. The update I got was not a good one. Romeo is started to change in a weird way. Orangutan doesn’t like water. In the wild, they will find a shelter when it’s raining. But, Romeo suddenly splashing water to himself. This is not a good sign, because there is a change in behavior. I couldn’t think what we can do about this, but I hope no more changing behavior anymore.
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| This is Romeo. The oldest orangutan in the survival center. |
Let’s be a smart human being. Less wasting, less greedy, and more caring. We only have one earth and it's getting old. Let’s do not do something we will regret later just for the sake of convenience and benefit. That’s how we will survive this life. We are way far from the Eden garden, but let’s work for it because all of these things are not ours.
I found some useful and interesting articles that might help you to know more about orangutan. You may check them out here.
Let’s reflect on our lifestyle and be more attentive to our surroundings.
Thank you for joining this first JCP Feature.
See you at the next one.
Thank you for joining this first JCP Feature.
See you at the next one.
Source:
https://www.profauna.net/en/forest-campaign/kalimantan-forest/about-forests-in-kalimantan#.XlSyOKeB2Rs
Special thanks to Bornean Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), Balikpapan for the effort in caring for the Bornean Orangutan and the sun bears that need help. If you happened to visit Balikpapan, surely visit BOSF and get some insights about these orangutans.
Special thanks to Bornean Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOSF), Balikpapan for the effort in caring for the Bornean Orangutan and the sun bears that need help. If you happened to visit Balikpapan, surely visit BOSF and get some insights about these orangutans.
