Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program

April 2018

Code REDAn e-newsletter from your friends in West Kalimantan

Dear Friends and Supporters, Welcome to our April edition of Code RED. We werebusy celebrating Earth Day, as we hope you weretoo! The first article, written by Program DirectorTerri Breeden, is about some of our specialconservation and research events this month.

Our second article is by Rinta Islami. Last year,Rinta graduated from our Bornean Orangutan CaringScholarship program and is now working at CabangPanti. She is our new Botanical Assistant and shareswith us what her work in the rainforest entails.

On our side bar, you can see the new truck wepurchased through the generous support of the

Issue: 64

In This Issue:

Earth Day Every Day!

-

Life as a BotanicalAssistant

-

Thank You ARCUSFoundation

-

Journalism Workshop

ARCUS Foundation. This will allow us to reachremote communities surrounding the national parkwhere we would like to focus more of ourconservation efforts.

Finally, a shout out to GPOCP staff member PetrusKanisius who was invited to share his knowledge ina workshop with local journalists. Sincerely,

Cheryl Knott, PhDExecutive Director Gunung Palung Orangutan ConservationProgram (GPOCP)

Earth Day Every Day!By Terri Breeden, GPOCP Program Director

We hope everyone was able to go out andcelebrate our beautiful Planet Earth on Earth Day.We were quite busy here in Indonesia celebratingas well. But this got me thinking... how did EarthDay come about? I decided to do some digging andfound out that it originally started on April 22, 1970when millions of Americans rallied to supportenvironmental protection after the 1969 oil spill inSanta Barbara, California. This later paved the wayfor the United States Environmental ProtectionAgency and legislation such as the Clean Air, CleanWater, and Endangered Species Acts. Today, EarthDay is celebrated around the globe. This year'stheme aimed to reduce plastic pollution, so GPOCPparticipated with our own activity here inKetapang!

Thank You ARCUSFoundation

GPOCP would like togive a heartfelt thank

you to the ARCUSFoundation for theirsupport to help us

buy a truck! This hasbeen a much neededtool that will help allof our programs runmore efficiently.

JournalismWorkshop

GPOCP'sCommunicationsOfficer, PetrusKanisius, was

recently asked togive a workshop tolocal journalists.

Petrus is a regularcontributor to printand on-line media

and he was happy toshare his knowledge!

Dania presenting about orangutan research being carriedout at Cabang Panti, during a conference held at the

National University in Jakarta (UNAS).

To start our Earth Day festivities, our volunteer,Dania Magaly Abizaid Herrera, gave a talk at theNational University in Jakarta (UNAS). The theme ofthe conference was Biodiversity for Life. Thisconference covered a range of subjects, includingmedicinal plants, fisheries, and animal behavior.Dania gave an overview of the research takingplace at the Cabang Panti Research Stationinvolving orangutans. She focused on our currentresearch project that is investigating why juvenileorangutans grow so slowly.

Choose GPOCP as your AmazonSmile recipient and 0.05% of your

sales will go directly to us.

"What's the use ofa fine house if you

haven't got atolerable planet to

put it on?"

-Henry DavidThoreau-

Wahyu Susanto, GPOCP Research Director, with Pak Ari,Head of GPNP, and Karmele Llano Sanchez, International

Animal Rescue, planting trees at Gunung Tarak.

We also had many eventful activities in WestKalimantan. Our Sustainable Livelihoods teampaired up with the local farming group in one of ourCustomary Forest villages, Pulau Kumbang. Thisvillage sent us a proposal with the goal of planting1,000 trees for Earth Day. GPOCP was excited tosee a local community take initiative and recognizethe importance of healthy forests! We also helpedrehabilitate forests within Gunung Palung NationalPark with International Animal Rescue (IAR). IAR'sEarth Day activity included replanting trees at

Gunung Tarak and we were honored to participate.

A gibbon hanging from a tree at Hutan Kota in Ketapang.

Because we were so busy on Earth Day, we held ourown clean-up event on April 29th. We invited theForestry Management Department, the localsanitation department, and our youth groups(TAJAM, ReBONK, and Sispala Care) to clean upHutan Kota, or the City Forest. This small forest isa local attraction to everyone in the town ofKetapang. It offers a wide variety of wildlife, notfar from the city center. It is common to seemacaques playing, gibbons calling, and proboscismonkeys leaping amongst the trees. Unfortunately,waste has piled up along the trails of Hutan Kota soGPOCP decided to take action. We organized thetroops and had a massive cleaning of the trails andwe posted new signs about the dangers of trash towildlife. The local radio station joined in our eventand conducted interviews where we were able todiscuss the importance of throwing trash in itsproper place and being more environmentallyfriendly by reducing the use of single use plastics.

Thanks to all the volunteers who helped clean HutanKota! Photo credits GPOCP.

Life as a Botanical AssistantBy Rinta Islami, GPOCP Botanical Assistant Maybe some of you are familiar with Gunung PalungNational Park (GPNP). It is located here in WestKalimantan, in the regencies of Ketapang andKayong Utara. GPNP is one of the last primaryrainforests in the world and is home to millions ofplants and animals, including the criticallyendangered orangutan and various types of hornbillspecies. These key species attract many foreignand local researchers who are interested in thediversity of plants and animals. At Cabang PantiResearch Station (CPRS) we have approximately2,100 hectares of trail systems encompassing eighthabitat types.

Rinta in Gunung Palung National Park collecing phenologydata. Photo credit GPOCP.

Last year, I finished up my bachelor's degree andwanted to learn more about orangutans so Ivolunteered to help the scientists at CPRS for onemonth. After my volunteer period, I was offereda position to join the Orangutan Research Team asa Botanical Assistant. I have been working here foralmost one year and am responsible for a variety oftasks. I have leaned to search for and followorangutans and to process the various types ofsamples collected, such as the fruits they eat, andthe feces and urine they excrete. Recently, I havestarted learning to collect phenology data. Anormal day of phenology starts around 8:30 in themorning. During this time, I will hike to selectedareas of the forest and record the amount of youngleaves, fruits, and the overall condition of certaintrees. Once I finish collecting data, I will search for

orangutans to follow. My days start a bit earlier,around 4:00 in the morning, when there is anorangutan to follow. These days I head out to thenest before the orangutan wakes up, collect urine,fecal, and food samples and return to camp toprocess the samples in the laboratory.

Rinta weighing and recording data on fruit samples eatenby an orangutan during one follow day.

Photo credit Faye Harwell.

There are many methods used to process each ofthe samples. Part of our research involves lookingat the parasites found in orangutan feces. Whilethis is a smelly job, I still find it interestingbecause it relates to orangutan health. If they aresick, or have many parasites, they will not expendmuch energy, which ultimately affects thedistribution of seeds they eat. I find it reallyinteresting when I find a whole seed in theorangutan feces. Imagine how that benefits theregeneration of forests! One of my favorite partsof the job is following mother-infant pairs. I love tosee their interactions, like when they share food.Oftentimes, I have seen a mother chew the foodbefore giving it to the baby. This is probablybecause the teeth of juvenile orangutans are notyet strong enough to break down these fruits andseeds. Many of the fruits I have encountered havevery hard shells and are difficult to open,especially fruits from the genus Strychnos andDiospyros.

Diospyros, an orangutan fruit, that has a very hard skin.Photo credit Rinta Islami.

Another behavior I enjoy watching is when juvenileorangutans start learning to be more independent.For instance, I have seen a young orangutan startto explore a tree a little further away from itsmother, but then you hear something like a childcrying because they have gotten too far away. Butnot to worry, mom is close by and comes back tosoothe her adventurous youngster.

Bibi and Bayas, one of the mother-infant pairs seen atCabang Panti. Photo credit Becky Curtis.

Apart from all kinds of research-related activities,daily life at CPRS is always exciting. Just imaginewaking up every day, breathing the fresh forest air,hearing the river calmly going by, and the songs ofvarious types of birds and animals singing theirmorning tunes. These parts of camp life I trulyappreciate as it is very difficult to have theseluxuries if living in the city. Despite living in themiddle of the forest and being very far away fromthe hustle and bustle of urban life, we rarely feellonely out here. We often play games and many of

the assistants are quite creative. We have startedmaking woven bracelets from non-timber forestproducts, such as rattan. It is our hobby in ourdown-time. It is my hope that I can continue togrow my knowledge of the research activitiesbe ing carried out at the Cabang Panti ResearchStation. We must find a way to expand our researchand benefit the community so they can also play arole in protecting and maintaining the biodiversityof Gunung Palung National Park.

Gunung Palung Orangutan Conservation Program (GPOCP) http://saveGPorangutans.org savegporangutans@gmail.com

Orangutan Photographs © Tim Laman

All other photographs © GPOCP