Conservation Camps
May 25, 2008
The site of a camp session held in April 2008
The SOS-OIC have developed the ‘Conservation Camp’ programme as an enjoyable and effective way for young Indonesians to learn about the environment and orangutan conservation. Representing key members of future societies, the participation of young people is essential in any attempt to safeguard the Sumatran orangutan and its tropical forest habitat. Our varied and informative environmental programme works to deliver key conservation messages and in-depth knowledge on species and habitat protection, using the orangutan as a flagship species for the tropical rainforests it inhabits.
Some of the students being grouped together
For these programs 10 students are selected to represent each local school, with about 60 schools participating in each session. The students, along with their teachers, all come to an outdoor location and camp out for three days. This not only allows them to enjoy being outside and next to nature, (there’s forest nearby!) but it also serves to create a conservation network. In that all of these participants are out and learning together, sharing and discussing ideas amongst themselves and with SOS-OIC staff.
Our Education division coordinator, M. Indra Kurnia, describing the importance of composting
Students are given talks on wildlife, conservation issues, and practical conservation actions they can undertake themselves. They are given training in practical aspects of conservation such as paper recycling (and production!), composting, proper disposal of rubbish and the application of conservation tools and surveying techniques.
Paper recycling - paper is blended into a pulp, mixed with leaf material for effect, and then dried to form new paper.
Through the use of interactive practical activities, educational films and targeted workshops, this programme has a high-impact, long-lasting effect at a grass-roots level, changing the way young people see their environment, whilst empowering them with the means to become actively involved in much-needed conservation projects themselves.
The composter built by the students
It doesn’t look like much (or very impressive!), but this handmade composter can be made very easily with readily available materials. The compost produced can then be used as organic fertilizer for any number of crops, both reducing the amount of waste to be discarded and also the need for any harsh, potentially expensive fertilizers.
Group discussions bring together students and teachers from different schools
The camp offers environmental training that is not offered in schools and also gives teachers the chance to receive training in communicating environmental messages so that the next generation will see the value in protecting their environment. The programme is free to attend for Indonesian students and teachers. Just recently, funding was awarded by BOS Canada (http://www.orangutan.ca/) to host another camp session in the Langkat province, which is one of the last provinces in North Sumatra where orangutans exist in the wild. Therefore the children from these communities are growing up and living in areas adjacent to key habitat areas for conservation and biodiversity.
Student read a poem about environment
It’s amazing the amount of knowledge and passion the children of Indonesia have demonstrated through programmes such as ours. As part of the closing ceremonies, they have a poetry session, where they recite verses they themselves write about the environment. It almost seems that if it were up to them alone, most all of the problems associated with orangutan conservation would come to an end.
By empowering young generations and instilling a sense of care and responsibility, the SOS-OIC is equipping a future generation with the tools and motivation needed. A system of community wildlife management is perhaps the only viable hope for conservation, of which environmental education programmes such as these can be seen as the first step towards securing a future for the wild orangutan.
First published on http://sos-oic.blogspot.com/2008/05/conservation-camps-programme.html
Gunung Leuser National Park Replanting Project
May 14, 2008
One of the single most important factors affecting the remaining orangutan populations is forestry management. The focus has to change from timber-orientated management, as it stands now, to sustainable management of forested areas that involve local communities and recognises them as key stakeholders. Replanting programmes need to be implemented to restore critical degraded land and counter this rapid level of deforestation in Indonesia.
Therefore the Sumatran Orangutan Society has been involved in forest rehabilitation (planting) since 2005, and to date have planted over a quarter of a million (that deserves its zeros – 250,000,000) new trees in Sumatra!
To this end we are still working, and today I will detail one of our latest projects, the replanting of a portion of deforested national park in Langkat, North Sumatra.
Dr. Gan (Musim Mas) and our conservation division coordinator Mustaqim at the tree nursery
This project is in conjunction with multiple bodies, again with funding from LUSH Natural Cosmetics, but also the SOS-OIC has partnered with a palm oil corporation, Musim Mas, for both funding as well as consulting. It may seem an unlikely pairing, seeing that palm oil plantations are now seen as one of if not the major threat to orangutans. However, the plantation industry has begun to acknowledge its effects and is now seeking to lessen their impacts on the environment.
The area of Gunung Leuser National Park to be replanted
Accompanying my visit to our replanting project was Musim Mas’s sustainability officer, Dr. Gan. Admittedly before meeting him I was pessimistic about the company’s role, however after a long discussion have instead come to have a bit of hope in the potential role of the industry in the future. He has worked with other plantation companies before, and has brought them to RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil – http://www.rspo.org/) standards, and is working to bring Musim Mas up to the same standards.
It is not to say that all is perfect with palm oil, and that each and every company is working to meet the same standards. Perhaps in this respect Musim Mas can be seen as an exception rather than the majority. However it is still a very positive sign that industry stakeholders are themselves working to better their operations and lessen their impacts on the environment; whilst also partnering up with NGOs such as the Sumatran Orangutan Society to actively regenerate forest habitat.
Anyways… back to the project itself!
The tree seeds
Objectives:
· Rehabilitate areas of Gunung Leuser National Park which have been degraded as a result of illegal agricultural encroachment (the land was actually taken and developed by a neighbouring palm oil company; but reclaimed through the efforts of the Sumatran Orangutan Society, with the authority of the National Government!) by replanting with indigenous tree species.
· Provide local communities with specific environmental educational and practical training on tree propagation and nursery management.
· Implement capacity-building activities in local communities to instill a sense of pride and responsibility towards the sustainable management of the National Park.
· Communicate the urgency of the conservation of Sumatran orangutans to local communities living adjacent to orangutan habitat.
· Inform local communities about the importance of protecting the integrity of the natural forest, both as Sumatran orangutan habitat, and as providing valuable ecological services of benefit to themselves.
· Provide an on-going supply of seedlings to support reforestation and re-greening efforts in Gunung Leuser National Park.
· Establish community forestry schemes in target areas to reinforce National Park buffer zones and provide sustainable alternative incomes for communities living adjacent to the park.
National Park Officials, Dr. Gan from Musim Mas, SOS-OIC staff, and local community members involved in the replanting programme.
A principal element in all of our programmes is the involvement of the local community. Without the input and support from the people living adjacent to the forests and the orangutans, any associated conservation programmes are inevitably doomed to failure.
Therefore, through February 2008, the SOS-OIC facilitated six meetings on topics suited to group needs. Community discussions were held on the initiative of forming farm groups, strategic planning of nursery management, justification and socialization of the replanting programme, replanting plans and the role of the implementing team, discussion on endangered endemic Indonesian flora and fauna by BKSDA (Indonesian government conservation body) staff, and an open focus group discussion to address any other questions and concerns of the people.
The on-site nursery and location of our National Park replanting programme.
Obstacles Encountered
1. Due to an extended dry season, the farm groups were forced to postpone planting. The seedlings should be planted in the rainy season so as to avoid a high percentage of seed death. Therefore until wet conditions return the community will focus its efforts on the nursery location (should be about ready to plant right now though!).
2. The farm groups are not ready to protect the surrounding forested area from forest-clearing by the people from outside their own villages. This takes place because is no legal decree/MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) which protects the land and strengthens the authority of local community members who plan to rehabilitate the area. This will require further coordination and deliberation from various stakeholders, a venture the SOS-OIC is up to tackling!
Links
Have added a links and news menu to the side of the weblog for your convenience.
Also for for those of you interested in conservation in Indonesia in general, consider joining the INCL list:
The Indonesian Nature Conservation newsLetter (INCL) is a non-profit internet e-mail list for announcements and news about topics related to nature conservation in Indonesia. Messages appear in digest format and are sent out once a week in both English and bahasa Indonesia, text or HMTL format (English and bahasa Indonesia editions differ and are not just translations). English version of INCL was first published as the initiation of Ed-Colijn on 1998. Then it improved on 1999 with assistance provided by Muhamad Muchtar. In the middle of year 2000, INCL in Indonesian version was published. Since 2005 INCL has started using googlegroups mailing list until now.
To (un-)subscribe, or if you have questions or relevant writings/contributions to be published in either English or Indonesian, please send email to the INCL team at: incl.contact@gmail.com or incl.kontak@gmail.com (Indonesian edition).
First published on http://sos-oic.blogspot.com/2008/05/gunung-leuser-national-park-replanting.html
Greetings from Medan – School Visit Programme
May 6, 2008
Greetings!
This is to be the latest development for the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS) – entering the realm of the weblog . Hopefully through this medium will be able to better share with the world what we here at the Sumatran Orangutan Society – Orangutan Information Centre (SOS-OIC) are up to.
Which I suppose should start by explaining that distinction. The SOS-OIC is considered the field office of the Sumatran Orangutan Society. It is located here in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia (will post photos of the office soon). Medan is the third largest city in Indonesia – so it has got quite a lot of development and a fair deal of affluence. But it is still Sumatra, meaning that the forests (and the orangutans!) are not that far off (Bukit Lawang, the most popular gateway into Gunung Leuser National Park, is only 80km from Medan). From the SOS-OIC office we base all of our conservation operations in Sumatra, which I shall detail in time from this site (summary details can also be retrieved from: http://orangutans-sos.org/projects).
As you may already know, the SOS-OIC is primarily concerned with conservation education and outreach to local communities in Sumatra (though we also run forest replanting projects {to be detailed soon!} and are soon to start an education programme centered around the tourism situation in the above mentioned Bukit Lawang {also to be detailed soon – I did my MSc research in Bukit Lawang, so I’m quite keen to go on about that site!}).
One such education initiative we have is visiting community schools with our OranguVan service
This is our latest OranguVan in the fleet (two total at the moment), with major funding provided by the Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics. The OranguVan is a rugged mobile library that allows for travel to different communities throughout Sumatra (sometimes across roads in various states of disrepair!).
School Visit Activities: Games and Quiz
Our goal is to reach as much of the community as possible. However, young people are to be the next generation of decision-makers of the world, therefore we have special programmes in place specifically aimed at educating young people.
School Visit Activities: Discussion with the Students
In North Sumatra (and perhaps most of Indonesia) there is no conservation/environmental education curriculum in place in schools. However, 40% of Indonesia’s forests were cleared between 1950-2000, reducing ground cover from roughly 162 million hectares to 98 million (FWI/GFW, 2002); Further, forest cover in Sumatra alone was reduced by 61% from 1985-1997 due to logging, infrastructure development, internal migration, and plantation development (McConkey, 2005). There is thus an urgent need for conservation education, so as to inform the people of both the past and the current situation, so that they themselves have the knowledge and power to shape their future.
School Visit Activities: Gifts for the Students
The SOS-OIC has therefore created and implented a conservation education curriculum that has officially been accepted by the governments from two large provinces here in North Sumatra (these are mostly rural provinces that border orangutan habitat and national parks – however we have plans to begin the education programme within Medan this coming September). The school visit programme (along with ALL of SOS’s programmes) is run by our local Indonesian staff, many of which have advanced university degrees. The Founding Director of the SOS-OIC, Panut Hadisiswoyo, is currently at Oxford Brookes University (of which he was awarded a full scholarship to attend) in Oxford, England studying for his MSc in Primate Conservation. He is set to return next week and will use that education to further propel the SOS-OIC in its mission to help save the Sumatran orangutan.
OIC Team and the Students Pose in front of OranguVan
The Sumatran orangutan population has decreased by 86% over the past 100 years and the most recent estimate places the figure around 7,300 left in the wild, with steady losses occurring every year (van Schaik et al., 2001; UNEP, 2007). Young Indonesians are to be the next generation that will truly hold the fate of the wild orangutan in their hands. Therefore it is imperative that theythemselves are given a proper and complete education – the sooner the better!
Well, that will do it for now! Any and all feedback is welcomed!
-dave
References: (although perhaps not typical in weblog format – I always like to know where data comes from – so I’ll make it available should you wish to dig deeper into the issues!)
FWI/GFW (2002). The State of the Forest: Indonesia. Bogor, Indonesia: Forest Watch Indonesia: Washington, D.C.: Global Forest Watch.
McConkey, K. (2005). Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). In: Caldecott, J. and Miles, L. (eds.) World Atlas of Great Apes and Their Conservation. University of California Press, pp.184-204.
UNEP (2007). The Last Stand of the Orangutan – State of Emergency: Illegal Logging, Fire and Palm Oil in Indonesia’s National Parks. In: Nellemann, C., Miles, L., Kaltenborn, B. P., and Virtue, M., and Ahlenius, H., eds. Norway: United Nations Environment Programme.
van Schaik, C. P., Monk, K. A. and Robertson, J. M. Y. (2001). Dramatic Decline in Orang-Utan Numbers in the Leuser Ecosystem, Northern Sumatra. Oryx 35 (1), pp.14-25.
First published on http://sos-oic.blogspot.com/2008/05/greetings-from-medan-school-visit.html
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