They're out there somewhere...

Moving the static sound recorder.

In between my exciting days of revising contracts, answering emails and writing procedures, I can sometimes sneak out to the forest and see what the scientists are up to. This week it was a (mostly) leisurely walk through the woods with Larissa, who is working on her Masters degree at the University of Jakarta. She has a fascinating subject - recording vocalizations of red langurs to figure out how they communicate. Unfortunately, the fun has to end sometime and after six months in Sabangau she’s scheduled to go back, write up her results and graduate. This is her last week here, so I promised myself I’d go out to see what she does before she stops doing it.

One of our forest friends - green pit viper.

She hauls a fair amount of gear around - big fuzzy microphone, a recorder in addition to the regular forest necessities. And today she wanted to move a static sound recorder from one area to another in the hope of catching the primates calling when she's not around.

But fun(gi)!

And more fun(gi)!

This was my second time out in the forest tagging along on a primate project and there are basically two shapes to a day when studying apes. First of all, you have to find them. You and at least one other team member go out and search using a grid pattern, walking slowly and stopping at intervals to listen for sounds and watching the treetops for rustling. Your schedule depends on the species group you want to find. Gibbons sing early in the morning, giving loud, long calls out that can be heard at great distances. They start the concerts before dawn but don’t carry on too long into the morning. So a gibbon researcher heads out to the forest before daylight in the general area that the groups tend to live, listens for the songs and then heads towards the sounds to find the apes. Orangutans are lazier, and tend to loll around in their nests until 7 or 8 in the morning, so orangutan scientists get a bit of a lie in before going out and listening to hear their rustling. Harder to find them ‘though because they don’t vocalize like gibbons. Red langurs - ahhh - Larissa chose the most difficult of the three primates to find. They give short calls (less than 5 seconds) and also tend to be more active earlier in the morning so she is often up and into the woods searching by 4:30 a.m. 

Challenging terrain

That’s just searching. Once you’ve found your primate of interest, you follow it (or them, if they’re hanging out in a group). And again, Larissa volunteered for the short stick - langurs won’t settle down to sleep until late in the day, sometimes as late as 5 or 5:30 p.m., so we often see her coming back to camp after dark, after a 12-hour day. But still cheerful. Orangutan researchers often have long days as well, but while these apes will construct nests, munch leaves and just generally not rush around, langurs are quite small, move fast through the very top of the tree canopy, and therefore are more difficult to see and to keep track of. Larissa has often returned to camp after long days having lost the group and knowing she’ll need to go out and search again the next day.

Not about her project; Larissa's just
being scale for some tree roots here

To round out the brief primate tutorial - while it seems that staff involved in the gibbon project may be the luckiest (easy to find, and they settle down earlier in the day) there’s a downside as well. Gibbons are fast and very active, so once you’ve found them, it’s a race through the forest to keep track of them. And remember, this forest is designed to trip you up with waist deep canals and big hook-shaped tree roots poking out of the soft, twist-an-ankle peat soil. 

I had a typical day out with Larissa - we didn’t find the red langur group for which she has been searching; one from which she has fewer recordings than the other two that live in the Sabangau research area. A leisurely walk in the woods, stopping, listening, looking - well, almost. As we were heading back to camp, another searcher texted - thought she’d heard the group on another transect! I continued my happy little walk back along the trail - Larissa headed off (fast) in another direction to try and track the primates down. No luck. Ah well, out at 4:30 tomorrow morning for her. Me - I’m working on revising contracts (9 to 5).

Larissa's biggest challenge?
Making sure Berni doesn't walk off in her sandals.

If you're wondering where the primate photos are: tcha! read the post - we didn't find them...

A Day in the Life

New mattresses for camp: via truck, klotok
(boats on right) & lori (flatbed on rails)

Woke up, made coffee. Started on computer at 7:30, checking emails. Revised student acceptance documents to let people know proper clothing to wear in town. Straightened out pay for 4 part-time staff members. Asked Riethma to call someone to repair leaky roof and to rent a truck. Forwarded Excel sheet created to organize photo library for communications, directors’ requests for presentations to Berni and Suzi. Helped load 8 new mattresses, 2 compost bins, a couple of plastic chairs, some washing tubs, 12 sets of sheets and a new transformer for the solar panel power system into a large truck. Asked (again) about support letters for research visas from Indonesian partner. No answer. Rode in truck to Kereng harbour. Used one of the chairs to wait for klotok boatman to finish noon prayer.  Laughed at his double take when he saw the pile of things to take across the river. Berni texted about flight arrival for Gunung Paleng staff exchange. Didn’t have an answer. Called him, told him to check tickets with Riethma. May be a booking problem. Helped load everything on two klotoks, texted men at camp of our imminent arrival so had lots of help to get all things onto our flatbed lori and carry them to camp buildings. Took a  picture of  loaded klotoks. Tried to resolve pay problem with Dudin, the boatman, but failed. Texted Sara about proper amount. Staff will not sign for incorrect pay but will wait until it agrees with their calculation of days worked and money owed. Texted Suzi to ask Sara to call me. Dropped backpack in my room. Checked the men’s house had been well cleaned and ready for new mattresses. Talked to Sara about Dudin’s pay. Could not resolve over the phone. Hungry. Had lunch. Talked to Lis about new mattresses for cooks. Will definitely need  more. Talked to Ari and Santi about repairs to butterfly traps. Asked Ari if he could pick material up for that today so he can repair tomorrow. Maybe. Trying to encourage Ari to be more proactive when managing his projects. Went over work schedule for tomorrow with Helene and Supian, decided on number of staff searching/following primate groups, people scheduled for kupu-kupu traps, camera traps and kerja lain. Couldn’t answer question about what three staff members need to have for week-long exchange to Gunung Palung starting day after tomorrow. Aman available for butterfly trapping with one intern to help as well. Talked to Supian about a new backpack. He wanted a small, Riethma couldn’t find one.  Gave Supian money to buy one himself when he goes to town later today. Staff pretty happy with new mattresses. Azis K. picked up the new field pants he asked for. Adul’s watch awaiting collection. Advanced Jono Rp. 1.000.000 for doctor for his mother. Wondered about whether we’re paying too much for medical expenses and what will happen next month when purchased health insurance kicks in because care for staff’s parents will not be covered. Discussed intern schedule with Helene. Mental note to talk to Berni when he arrives at camp later today. Tried to catch Udin to pay him for 3 extra days for last month, but seems he has left. Turned on water taps to mandi buckets for filling. Turned off taps when full. Discussed fun jumping on mattresses with Helene before they’re all installed in staff house. Possible, sure. Used empty plastic box to store new sheets. Azis carried it over to men’s house. Answered Suzi’s text about asking Adul if she could go along on camera trap tomorrow. Will ask Adul when I see him. Thanked the men for cleaning their house. Asked them to be aware they have to take care of new things for house and told them that chairs and tables will follow later. Agreed with Helene about adding ‘clean office’ to gotong royong day. Put Lizzie’s new mattress in her room. Laughed at sign Emily made: “Casa Larizzie” indicating room shared by Larissa and Lizzie. Consulted with Jono about getting rid of old mattresses. He offered to take them back to village for disposal. Planned small arts and crafts project with Helene; using enamel paint to put names on field lunchboxes to try to reduce equipment loss. Had a coffee. Started working on intern review document. Said hello to Lizzie. Watched cloud cover increase. Looks like rain soon. Answered text from Azis K who cannot work tomorrow. ‘cause his neighbour died. Texted Azis to ask if he can follow gibbons instead of Azis K. Talked to Twenti about money for camp expenses. Seems like we’re 5 million short this month. Texted Riethma to confirm amount we paid earlier this month ‘cause I’ve forgotten. Retrieved intern 6-week review document from Dropbox to add tracked changes. Riethma confirmed lesser amount. Talked to Connie about her day. She told me several new words learned while we made ourselves coffee. Asked Lis about biscuits and noodles for field snacks. Paid Twenti extra money, hope we get biscuits for field snacks. Berni arrived. Talked to Berni about Chris working all projects. Plan to work on contracts tomorrow, to have ready for signature by end of month. Rescheduled Connie to follow gibbons, texted Azis to forget gibbons, he’s still on phenology tomorrow. Azis texted back OK. Dropped into kitchen and smelled good food. Discussed hunger pangs with Connie and Lizzie. Makan malam is ready and special, variety of chicken curry, lettuce and coconut kue for dessert. Laughed at Emily’s stories about waist deep water and mosquito attacks. Finished dinner.  Brought lunch boxes to mansion and painted names on them. Lizzie and Connie much more creative than me, so left them to it. Berni excavated more rat traps, looks like overnight rat massacre on the schedule. Very light rain, may get heavy later on. Played cutthroat game of Bohnanza. Went to bed, read, slept.

Everyone's got a job & they're all planned out for the month on this board

Meet Ulysses

Ulysses, an unflanged male.

This past week I had the chance to go with two of the primate staff members, Uji & Unyil, on an orangutan follow, although it wasn’t the first time I’d seen them & in fact not the first time I met Ulysses. He’s been hanging around in the trees around camp for several days, making it pretty easy to find him in the morning.

Uji collecting urine samples.

Forest lunch

The pattern of primate research, after groups of apes have been habituated to human presence, is to first search for your subject. That involves teams of 2 or 3 people walking transects in the forest, stopping at frequent intervals and looking and listening for your target. There are three primate species studied here; orangs, gibbons and red langurs, the last being the most challenging to find in the forest. Orangutans tend not to move as far (except for young males), gibbons sing in the morning, so are a bit easier to locate, and red langurs - well, I’m not sure how people find them yet. They’re smaller and more secretive. Anyways, after you’ve found your apes, you follow them, which means that gibbon and langur staff may have to travel longer distances and move more often, while Ulysses lounged around within 50 meters of camp for over 5 hours, munching on leaves and occasionally moving over to a different tree. (Male orangutans will spend most of their time alone; another pair of staff members were following a mother and baby farther away from camp.)

Unyil watching Ulysses up in the trees.

On the previous day, staff could watch
Ulysses from a chair in camp, with a
hot coffee from the kitchen.

The routine is consistent; every 5 minutes record what your subject is doing and how far he’s moved, with his current GPS location. Collect urine and faeces samples (at this point I’d like to reiterate why I’m a forester - trees don’t poop).

So while it was a pretty easy day, I had an excuse to leave the follow at 11:00 am (office work in town). My co-workers had to stay and record everything Ulysses did until he made a nest for the night and settled down, which is typically close to dusk (5 or 5:30). Considering that the day started at 5 am to be in place under the sleeping tree Ulysses chose last night, it turns out to be a long haul. Staff members usually follow apes for 3 days in a row, after which they are assigned work in the nursery or on butterfly surveys, which is a more reasonable 7 hour day.

The best part of the day for me was getting to know Uji and Unyil better. Between the 5-minute data collection points there’s a lot of time to chat & joke. And that’s one of the critical parts of my job; to build strong relationships with the staff. So I’ll be going out on more follows and searches, collecting fruiting and flowering data for tree species, identifying butterflies, picking up litter fall from leaf traps and helping with the reforestation project. Which will all be very welcome breaks from the office work and administrative details that fill a lot of my typical day!

A different forest entirely

Hang around here long enough & you just might be tracked, measured or observed - it’s going around. Scientific studies are thick on the ground along with the more recent addition of active conservation programs like reforestation and peatland restoration. In short, an incredibly productive place with reams of data collected on a daily basis. 

The Indonesian umbrella organization here (acronym: CIMTROP) is centred at Palangka Raya university - they own the camp & land around it which includes the large study area. OuTrop operates the field camp under a collaborative agreement & brings in mostly international researchers, assistants, interns and volunteers. The project was established originally to track and observe orang-utans in the wild - behavioural, nutritional, social studies, etc. etc. It expanded to include gibbons and red langurs as more people pursued new research. To properly observe these wildlife groups they must first be habituated to human presence over several years so that they won’t react and behave atypically when a couple of people are crouching in the bush watching their every move. 

Numbers of researchers and assistants on site per year vary according to which study projects are accepted, but have been rising over the last several years due to the addition of tree phenology and biodiversity studies (butterfly and fish surveys are two of these currently in progress). 

Southern Bornean gibbon

In the last month I was able to get out in the forest three times, once with a couple of visitors and the Field Director, Berni, to see if we could find some orangs - we didn’t, but met the gibbon trackers who were observing a mom & baby pair. I imagine after a long day you might need a neck massage - look up, way up, to check the animals’ activities at regular intervals (I think about every 5 minutes). The work day for primatologists stretches from when their subjects leave their sleeping places early in the morning until they bed down at night - anywhere from 6 to 10 or even 12 hours later. 

Berni checking out the gibbons,
Twenti & Helene collecting data. 

All sorts of interesting plants & insects can be seen on a short walk, and many of the mobile variety just visit you in camp. A pit viper (left) was hanging out in a small tree by one of the cabins & the wild pig diner is just outside our dining room.

Other forms of life can be seen relaxing after days in the field collecting data or in the office collating it.

CIMTROP patrol team building
a dam using stems cut from the
surrounding woods.

Meter-high seedlings from the
 forest are planted on top of the dam
 to stabilize it further.

The third day in the woods I went along with the CIMTROP patrol team to take pictures while they built two dams in one of the old logging canals. They may look narrow with slow-moving water, but these waterways lace through extensive areas of the peat forest. Intentionally dug several decades previously in order to make access via small boats & wood extraction easier. As a consequence, the canals drain water from the peat soil making the forest highly susceptible to wildfires in an area which is not at all adapted to fire. The Sabangau forest is now a conservation area, and one of the most important preservation steps is to build and maintain dams on the canals, to keep water pooling in the lowland forest.

A second smaller dam is built
upstream to slow water flow
as much as possible.

Scene from camp 3 weeks ago

Camp last week, water is rising.

I’ll have the chance to tag along with each of the projects, but since the rainy season has now started it’ll be a bit damp - sloshing on forest paths that can be hip deep in water. Ah well, that’s one sign of a healthy peatland tropical forest.

Second First Impressions

It’s always tricky starting a new job - always stressful, at least I’ve found it so. In situations where I haven’t felt completely inadequate for at least the first couple of days, the work didn’t challenge me and had no potential for growth. Trust me, right now I’m stressed. I can only offset the feeling by telling myself that this just might turn out to be the best job I’ve ever had. I have no doubt it will be (another) steep learning curve.

So here I am in Palangka Raya, provincial capital of Central Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. Fast & dirty geography lesson (or recap for those of you who stuck with my blog - by the way, I love you). Indonesia sprawls out between the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, almost 2 million square kilometers of land area nestled in over 5 million square kilometers of territorial area. While many foreigners have heard of Borneo and Bali you’d be surprised at how many don’t realize that these are just two of the country’s 17,000 islands (give or take a few hundred). Checking population on some websites, estimates vary from 240 to 270 million people - imagine a margin of error equivalent to Canada’s entire population.

Borneo itself is shared by Indonesia (the bulk of southern land area), Malaysia in the north, with the small country of Brunei located in the northwestern corner. There are 5 provinces in the Indonesian part of the island: North, West, East, South and Central Kalimantan provinces & if you live or visit here you would usually say you’re going to Kalimantan, not Borneo.

First impressions when comparing to South Sulawesi - it’s a little closer to the equator, but seems hotter not because of that. The area is flat, flat, flat. Apparently more mountainous in the interior but from the little bit I’ve seen so far the area around Palangka Raya has very little elevation. So it’s a change for me from the cool hills in Bengo-Bengo. Different vegetation - but I’ll leave the intensely interesting botanical discourse for (much) later after I’m more familiar with the local ecology, tropical peat forests. The city is quite small compared to Makassar, quiet, much less traffic, but my new office mates tell me that it’s had a sudden spurt of development just in the last few years. A new Hypermart (one of my favourite places for cheap household goods), a Mata Hari clothing department store, cinema, new hotels and apparently yogurt & cheese can now be found locally, so I’m all set.

So getting back to the stress - my new job is Operations Manager for the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project (OuTrop), a research and conservation organization that partners with the local university, Universitas Palangka Raya and their conservation group CIMTROP. OuTrop itself was originally established by several researchers from the UK working on (surprise) orangutans, and has branched out over the last 15 years or so to include other wildlife studies, forestry and ecological projects, etc. etc. But why reiterate (and massacre) a good description of the organization when you can find it at outrop.com.

I have a long job description which may be summarized by the phrase “run things smoothly” - primarily the logistics of the station. Again, first impressions - there are several staff members responsible for research, communications, finances, camp management etc. There’s an office in town and a field station in Sabangau forest, about an hour away by road, boat & small rail. I’ll visit that tomorrow to see the set up and meet the staff there. Anyways, the staff all seemed happy to meet me, maybe because they’ve been filling in the gaps for several months of what will be my job. 

Other news: language skills are coming back, I’m meeting tons of new people involved in the projects here, still not crazy about Indonesian food, but I brought my favourite coffee mug from home & am freely indulging in good coffee again. Pictures to follow.

Don't Ask Why

Friends & family in Canada were curious about why I wanted to go back to Indonesia & as soon as possible. Beyond the usual ‘skipping the cold winter’ I didn’t, & still don’t, have an answer. But there’s a feeling here that I don’t get at home, that is maybe explained through an anecdote.

Before leaving again I had to get a passport-sized photo of myself with a red background for the visa application. Sounds easy, right? Conceding that Fredericton is a small town with a limited demand for portrait studios, one of which had just closed its doors, there remained about half a dozen larger and smaller businesses. I called all of them & none of them could meet the requirement of a red background, except Walmart as long as I could ignore the Christmas tree blocking out a lot of the solid red. The answers were ‘No, sorry, can’t do that’. End of discussion.

Now, if I had asked on any commercial street in a similar-sized town in Indonesia for a blue background (they all have red for the official photos) the answer would rarely have been ‘no’. It would have been ‘well, no I don’t have that, but my brother knows a guy who works two streets over who may be able to do that’ or ‘no, but if you want to pay this guy to go and buy a blue sheet of paper, he will bring it back and then I can take your picture’, or ‘no, but why do you need that?’ which would devolve into a long discussion of the funny things different governments require for official purposes.

(Sidenote: The above example also illustrates why I find Canadians teaching entrepreneurship to Indonesians laughable.)

Maybe that’s why I like it - there just seem to be so many rich possibilities in every small daily transaction & nothing seems impossible. When I started learning the language I gathered a lot of my Indonesian vocabulary from books & flipping through the dictionary, so the foundation was proper language, not everyday use in conversation. So when I used one of the words I’d learned - “mustahil” - one of my friends didn’t understand what I was trying to explain. Mustahil - dictionary definition - means ‘impossible’. My friend laughed. “We never use that word - we just say ‘tidak mungkin’”. Which means ‘not possible’, or conveys the meaning ‘improbable’. It may sound subtle but ‘not possible’ leaves that gap for chance to slip through. In Canada, many things are mustahil, in Indonesia, nothing seems to be.

Taking off the rosy specs, often you can’t get what you want or need here. The answer may be ‘next week’ or ‘next month’ and you may be continually put off until it becomes evident that you’re just not going to get what you want. Part of this is due to the cultural tendency to politely answer any demand, even obviously unreasonable ones. But part of it really is optimism in what the future may bring. So, maybe what really explains my feelings about the country is ‘lie to me, I still love you’.

But - maybe - life is pretty much the same here as in Canada, without polar vortices. Just in a different language so everything seems new & more exciting. That’s entirely possible & how would I ever know if that’s not the case? I’ll write more about how returning is going in the next post. No doubt it will be a new experience (again) - new job, different island - I can’t wait to start. Right after all the bureaucratic hoops in Jakarta have been negotiated.

In the end, I got my red background in Fredericton - went to Fabricville, bought a meter of red cotton, went back to the Walmart studio where I received the most positive negative & helped the friendly portrait artist hang the cloth from her curtain rod. Voila - an official passport photo against red rather than white background. Tidak mustahil after all.

These are the people in my neighborhood...

I'm occasionally (or actually, all the time) accused of not having any people in my pictures. Can I help it if my camera keeps shifting to the landscape & trees? So, in my last week here, I made a special effort & here are some of the people I've worked & played with in Sulawesi. Enjoy!

On the porch with Pak & Ibu Hussein at their house. Pak Hussein is the head of his village & also works at Hutan Pendidikan. On this day, Ibu Hussein gave us some delicious sirsak & introduced Kirsten to the wonders of durian fruit (she likes it).

Aya (left) & Emily (right) in the forest last month - Australian teachers who lived in Maros for a year & are now readjusting to life back home. Frequent visitors to the forest, I miss them.

Random schoolchildren- not personal friends, but so cute.

Nasri, Kirsten, Joel & Ikram. Joel is an Australian teacher working in Maros & Ikram is a friend (& maybe my future business partner) from Maros - which, incidentally, is the city I travel through every week to get from the forest to the university in Makassar.

Traffic jam at the swimming hole.

On my last weekend at the forest, it was great to have several friends from Makassar come up for a hike and overnight stay. We went for a long trek in the woods, punctuated by a swim. Let's see - picture above has Titien, Ruud, Jasper, one of Ruud's & Kirsten's children, Marilke, Ipin, Joel, Abby, Annie, someone else, someone else, someone else (we met some other group swimming when we arrived there).

The next day, breakfast at my house. Kirsten &  others (Kir is the white one, newly arrived from home to make sure I get back to Canada).

The Dean and members of the forestry faculty treated me & Kirsten to dinner at a seafood restaurant as a thank you & goodbye. Great people to work with - among others I hadn't met, we have Pak Restu (the Dean, in the blue shirt), Pak Muzrisal, Pak Millang, me, Ibu Yanni, & beside Kir on the other side, Pak Supratman.

And, of course, the management team - Tim Pengelolaan Hutan Pendidikan - Nasri, me & Wildan.