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VOLUNTEER ACTIVITIES REPORT - November, 2000
Tanjung Puting National Park
by Drh. I Gede Suarsadana
Dear Friends
Greetings from Friends of National Parks Foundation.
First of all we would to thanks to whom always support us in any way that allow us to continue even improve our work at Tanjung Puting National Park. I just visited the park from November 30th - December 7th 2000. During this visit I still saw some boat brought some logs ( about 100 - 200 logs a day ).
From the information that I got the logging activities were still going on along Sekonyer river before I came and almost the same number of log everyday. There was a good news that we got from our representative in Pangkalan Bun that said the central and local government with army and police started to give strong action to the illegal logger since December 10th 2000 not only along Sekonyer river but also to the other illegal logging side such as Buluh Kecil and Buluh Besar river. We hope it will not just a temporary action but really will make the illegal logging does not happen in the park soon and forever.
In this occasion we also would like to inform you that we have a new Veterinarian as volunteer beside the biologist Ngurah who will give a medical care to all of orangutan . His name is Drh. Herlin Rangkuti from North Sumatra.. He came on November 27th 2000 and will stay there at least for three months as a volunteer. We hope he willing to work as our staff. Beside he is qualified as a vet he also have a lot experience in agriculture and aquaculture. As we are trying to encourage the villager to work in some different work we have started to introduce the aquaculture because we believe the are around the park have a great potential for the aquaculture. For the starting we just make a pilot project to open the villager mind the slash and burn farming a logging are not the only job that they can do. Hopefully in the long run the people will understand and get a benefit from it.
We have proposed to the park's management to have a longer agreement to work to let us continue the program not just for the orangutan but also try to give a solution for the very complicated problem that make the park have a lot of pressure from logging and mining. For us if we just try to stop them without give them a solution it will not make the people who use to make a living by destroy the park understand and stop their activities voluntary. For your information we will send you our proposal separately and we hope will get some support from you in any how.
Once again thank you for your support.
Sincerely yours,
Drh I Gede Nyoman Bayu Wirayudha
Director of FNPF
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Volunteer Report
By. Anak Agung Ngurah Sastra Bayu, S.Bio
And Drh. Herlin Rangkuti
December 5th 2000
Please accept our apologies for delaying our report due to limited time that we have. In this month we are quite busy for about to finished our Electricity and water treatment project at Tanjung Harapan (first Station). The illegal logging are still going on along Sekonyer river even not as much as in the previous month. As usual, we will give you the latest information about the orangutan rehabilitation project and the progress that we have done in Tanjung Puting National Park. We also put some information about the Tanjung Harapan village a cross the river from the first station.
Here with our report in detail as below :
Orangutan Rehabilitation
Tanjung Harapan
All of the orangutan babies at the first station are OK. Lady the new comer is already released in the tree during daytime and accompany by Adung the youngest orangutan baby at this station. Lady and Adung still have to sleep in one of the room at the ranger's house to make sure we can monitor them easier and for their comfort as well. We have designed the room that make them have almost the same setting in their normal life by put a big tree branch. That tree branch completed by a rounded plastic container and we put some small tree branches as their artificial nest. There are some improvement happened after we treated them in this way. For Adung he does not too afraid climb to a higher place and Lady now can climb as the other babies. As we have reported in our previous report when Lady came she even could not walk as the mismanagement from the one who kept her before.
The other baby like Nyoman, Bonzen, Alui and Yuyun still come to the station for the feeding just occasionally and they will stay around the station just for a while.. All of them are in good condition, they use to play, come to the station and travelling in the forest together. They prefer to go to the forest than staying in the station which is very good for them. They just come to the station during feeding and then they will back to the forest after they have their meals.
Recently the first station have a semi-wild / wild female orangutan with her baby. We try to identify her but so far no body knows who is she. She came to the station for the first time about a month ago and we thought she was one of the ex captive orangutan named Davida and her baby. After we saw them in a close distance we knew that she wasn't. Davida. She has darker face than Davida and her baby is smaller than Davida's baby. She comes to the station just to pick up some bananas from the feeding platform and after that she will disappear in the tree. We are trying not to feed them because we do not want they behave like the ex-captive orangutan. She comes to the station once in four days or maybe more.
Pondok Tanggui
The orangutan at the second station (Pondok Tanggui) so far do not have a problem with their health. Even not all of them come to the feeding station in the same time but most of them just come to the feeding platform just to have their meals and then will back to the forest soon. In most case now we need to wait for half an hour or sometime more after we call them for feeding time. We feel this is a good indication because they must spread into the forest further than they use to do.
Michael the Gibbon is doing well and he become more independent now. He still enjoy to close to the people. We still wait for a female Gibbon but we do find any of them at somebody's house who keep them illegally. We try to approach as much as people to inform us if they see any of the gibbon that might we can take. The biggest problem in this station is the illegal logging.
Camp Leaky
As at the other station the orangutan at Camp Leaky all in a good condition. Some of them come to the feeding platform when we feed them and then back to the forest. Some of them still visit the station like Princes and her babies Peta and Pangeran, Achmad and her baby, Tutut and her two months baby and other adult female for some time. The King ( dominant male ) Kosasih also still comes to station occasionally. He stays around the station for two or three days and then back to the forest for a week or more. So far he still the only dominant male in this area. There is another big adult male named Tanggo who is the son of Tutut start to come more often to this station. He is about nineteen or twenty years old and his cheek pad still developing . His body size is larger than the other adult male at the same ages. We think that he will be the next dominant male at this station.
Water Treatment and Electricity Project
This month we have finished the water treatment and electricity project at the first station. Right now can provide much better water for drinking water than the regular water that we use to collect up river about 1,5 hours by motorized canoe. We do not only use the water for our rehabilitation station but also we share it for the villager in the other side of the river Tanjung Harapan. Even the quantity of the water that we can treated is not big enough to supply all of our needed but at least we can have a better water for drinking and cooking. If the water treatment that we have right now really can provide a good water quality year around we think we need to make the same thing at the village
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