By riverboat to the Garden of Eden
A trip to Borneo's endangered orangutans
By Carola Frentzen
Kumai, Indonesia - The air in paradise is full of smoke. It's hot and humid
and the lungs fill with the heavy air of forest fires. Kalimantan. Country
of legend, tradition and culture. Country with a unique and still unexplored
flora and fauna. And unfortunately, country with a variety of problems.
"It has never been this bad before. The rains simply won‘t start,"
says Anang, a travel guide in Indonesian Borneo who takes travellers
on a boat trip to Tanjung Puting National Park.
This is the home of the orangutan, the fascinating "Man of the forest".
Tanjung Puting is world famous for it's orangutan rehabilitation
programme. It helps orangutans that have been raised illegally as
pets to adapt to life in the wilderness. The goal of the programme
is to re-install their natural instincts for the jungle, by removing their
fear which is often brought about by the influence of logging. They
are encouraged to climb and find fruit in the forest on their own as
well as making nests in the trees.
The 1600 square miles of the park host a lot of other natural, yet
often endangered wonders, including the bizarre looking proboscis
monkey with its prominent nose as well as Malaysian sunbears,
clouded leopards, corcodiles and over 220 bird species.
It is a long way to this ape paradise, starting at the spartan
airport in Pangkalan Bun and taking the traveller from there by car
to the small port of Kumai, from where the journey continues by
klotok - a traditional Indonesian riverboat - into the jungle of
central Kalimantan.
After two hours something red can be seen moving in the treetops.
"An orangutan," Anang calls out, as the captain brings the klotok to
a halt.
During the course of the days-long tour along the Sekonyer River,
the travellers will have unforgettable experiences, such as the sight of
swarms of brightly-coloured tropical butterflies and the impressing sound
of the "long call" of big male orangutans. At night, fireflies can be seen among
the palms, making them look like Christmas trees.
"In the rainy season there are large numbers of insects, and also
leeches that attach themselves all over the body," the captain says.
There is a chef aboard, who conjures up wonderful Asian meals in
his small galley.
At night, when the travellers stretch out on comfortable
mattresses under mosquito nets, the rain forest truly comes to life.
"Sleeping on the boat under the open skies is simply fantastic.
This is the way to have direct contact with nature," says Carlo, an
Italian orangutan lover.
The trip takes the travellers past the Rimba Lodge, the only hotel
in the rain forest, before the klotok glides ever deeper into the
Bornean jungle.
To the right lies the Tanjung Puting National Park, to the left
trees and bushes line the bank.
Behind them a terrifying emptiness can be seen - the result of
uncontrolled logging and the subsequent forest fires that have laid
waste to the area and will leave their legacy for centuries.
"The situation for the orang-utans and the rain forest is really
sad," according to Birute Galdikas, an internationally-renowned
Canadian researcher into orangutans.
She set up her Camp Leakey - named for her mentor Louis Leakey -
in 1971, and this is the ultimate destination of the riverboat trip.
From where the boat is moored, the way leads over a wooden bridge
of several hundred metres to the camp, which consists of simple
houses in which the rangers live, along with an information centre
for visitors.
"Male orang-utans can grow to 1.50 metres and weigh an average 120
kilograms," one of the information boards reads.
For those who want more than statistics, here is the opportunity
to meet the huge "Man of the Forest" in person.
Just five minutes‘ walk away, Tom blocks the jungle path, a mature
adult male with the typical cheek pads, who is on his way to the
feeding platform where the orang-utans get milk every day.
Many visitors immediately seek to put distance between themselves
and Tom, as he is so impressive that those unaccustomed to orang-
utans are usually frightened.
Orang-utans are not at all aggressive, although they have become
expert thieves. They rummage through the visitors‘ rucksacks or
trouser pockets for anything they might find to eat.
Tom is holding firmly onto the hand of Utung, a young female.
"Tom‘s in love," a woman from the United States says enthralled.
If the travellers are lucky, they can see as many as a dozen of
these hairy red giants at the feeding platform, and there are also
regular visitors to the camp, like the affectionate Siswi or the
dangerous-looking Unjuk.
Most of the apes around Camp Leakey are orphans saved from the
jungle at a young age by Galdikas and then returned to the wild.
Almost all the females have youngsters clinging to their bodies.
They are completely able to forage for themselves, finding their
food, mostly fruit, in the jungle.
But many of them happily avail themselves of the milk provided by
the rangers.
Orang-utans breed only once every eight years, and their natural
environment is under increasing threat from deforestation caused by
logging and burning.
Their existence has been precarious for years, and according to
some estimates, wild members of the species could be extinct within
10 years.
"They are important from a biodiversity point of view and they are
also the world‘s largest tree-living animal," Galdikas says.
The researcher, who has been living in the rain forests for the
past two decades, sees these wonderful creatures as "the gardeners of
the Garden of Eden."
