REPORTER: Schwartz
Orang utan means literally person of the forest, and particularly at this age, it’s hard to think of them as anything other than human.
In fact 98% of the orang utans genetic material is identical to our own.But that hasn’t stopped humans killing off our forest cousins. Over the past 10 years it’s estimated that the world orang utan population has been cut virtually in half.
There are now no more than 27,000 orang utans. They live on just two islands in Asia — Sumatra and Borneo. The only great ape found outside Africa.
Over the years orang utans have been hunted by poachers, their forests destroyed by loggers and farmers. That so many have survived here in Kalimantan, is due to one woman — Dr Birute Galdikas
It’s 23 years since Dr Galdikas and her first husband ventured up the Sekonyer River in a dug-out canoe.
GALDIKAS: At the time that I paddled up it was raining, it was drizzling rain, and the forest, on either side of the river, it looked very forbidding. And very dark.
Inspired by Jane Goodall’s study of chimpanzees, and Dian Fossey’s work with gorillas, the young college graduate wanted to observe the other great primate — the orang utan.
GALDIKAS: I was very curious about orang utans. I wanted to find out everything there was to know about how wild orang utans lived.
Dr Galdikas established her research base in what is now Tanjung Puting National Park. She called it Camp Leakey, after Louis Leakey, the famed anthropologist who sponsored her mission as well as those of Fossey and Goodall.
Today Dr Galdikas has a house and family down river. But Camp Leakey is where she spends most time. This is home.
The early days around camp were bedlam. Dr Galdikas soon found herself not only scientist, but mother, nurse and role model for an unwieldy brood of orphaned and ex-captive orang utans.
Dr. BIRUTE GALDIKAS (Primatologist): There were orang utans tearing up my mattress, there were orang utans turning on the radio, there were orang utan trying to put eggs and flour together and stirring them, trying to make pancakes, which they’d seen our cook do. There were orang utan literally climbing up the walls. There were orang utan carrying mosquito nets into the trees and making their own little, you know, putting mosquito nets over their nest.
GALDIKAS: Siswe, I want you to come over here, sit by me if you want. No, no, I’m not going to share.
Siswe is one of the old timers. She was the first orang utan born at Camp Leakey.
Now a mother herself, and living in the wild, she still drops in regularly, for coffee, just as her mother used to.
(Siswe takes coffee cup)
GALDIKAS: I just had a feeling this would happen. Somehow I just knew this would happen. I just knew this would happen. This is what happens to my morning coffee. Impossible to drink it here. I just stay inside the house. Well Siswe certainly is one of my favourite characters, and I’ve noticed that Siswe does exactly as her mother did before her. That Siswe learned from her mother, you know, her mother’s friendship with me. And Siswe is a very smart orang utan.
REPORTER: What makes orang utans special?
GALDIKAS: I think everything about them. Their intelligence, their curiosity, their gentleness, their appearance, their behaviour, everything. And also the fact that they are very, very closely related to humans. When you look into the eyes of an orang utan, the eyes that are reflected back are basically our own.
Like humans, orang utans have a great capacity for learning. Sixteen years ago, Dr Gary Shapiro spent several months at Camp Leakey, teaching sign language to a young orang utan called Princess. Binti — Dr Galdikas’s son — learnt at the same time. And the two youngsters were often seen conversing.
Princess is still a quick learner, but these days she’s giving priority to more practical skills.
WOMAN: There you go. Good girl. Beautiful.
For all the antics of the camp, orang utans lead simple and solitary lives grazing in the forest treetops.
Dr Galdikas has spent most her days following them, documenting their habits and charting their life cycle.
Today, the Professor has students and assistants to help her track wild orang utans such as Pete, pregnant with her second child.
For years however, Dr Galdikas went out on her own. She once followed an orang utan for 100 days, noting its every move, resting only after it had nested for the night.
GALDIKAS: I would get so lonely that I would look up into the trees and feel this yearning to be friends with that wild orang utan I was following. And the wild orang utan would look down at me and I saw no such yearning in her eyes. An orang utan is genetically programmed by millions of years of evolution to live alone. You know, orang utans can be Clint Eastwood, orang utans can turn their backs after all is said and done and ride off into the sunset. But we humans, our evolution really never gave us that privilege. When we do that, we are turning our backs on our own biology.
Dr Galdikas has seen what other primatologists have only read about — blood-curdling fights between jealous males, orang utans mating and giving birth. Most of the time, however, this is not an exciting spectator sport.
GALDIKAS: Basically their lives consist of eating fruit, eating more fruit and eating more fruit.
REPORTER: How important is this forest for the survival of the orang utan?
GALDIKAS: Well, if this forest were opened up, the orang utans in this area would go extinct. It’s that simple.
Timber is one of Indonesia’s most valuable exports, and there’s a lot of it around Camp Leakey. On the river bordering Tanjung Puting National Park there’s a regular flow of timber rafts, all making their way to the sawmills.
This haul is worth about $400. Not easy money, but by local standards, big money.
There are stiff penalties for illegal loggers in Indonesia, but the truth is, out here the laws are difficult to police. This is an illegal logging camp, one of many just across the river from Tanjung Puting National Park. When the people here heard our speedboats arrive, they took off into the forest.
Today, at least, Dr Galdikas has the Indonesian authorities behind her. A couple of years ago, it looked like she’d be kicked out of the park, when powerful opponents within the Forestry Ministry sought to cancel her research permit.
Bupati Darman addressing student group Schwartz: Her staunch ally through that time was Bupati Darman, the provincial administrator. He says the key to orang utan survival is striking a balance between development and conservation.
BUPATI DARMAN (Provincial Administrator): If we don’t use the timber, then it’s useless. Industry is important, but so it the environment. There must be a balance. And now the government in particular with help from orang utan experts is doing good things in conservation.
GALDIKAS: Why don’t you just do the fresh samples?
STUDENT: Okay.
Back at Camp Leakey, Siswe is up to her old tricks.
GALDIKAS: She says I want a food sample too, after all I’m an orang utan and that’s an orang utan food sample.
Dr Galdikas never tires of such encounters. These orang utan are like family. Even so, the Professor realises she can’t stay here forever. That there must be others ready to take her place.
GALDIKAS: Well sooner or later we all have to leave. one way or another, we all have to deal with age, we all have to deal with health problems, we all have to deal with those issues. So I hope when that day comes, that I have to deal with those issues, that there will be people who will be ready to carry on the work that I began here 23 years ago.
Orang utan means literally person of the forest, and particularly at this age, it’s hard to think of them as anything other than human.
In fact 98% of the orang utans genetic material is identical to our own.But that hasn’t stopped humans killing off our forest cousins. Over the past 10 years it’s estimated that the world orang utan population has been cut virtually in half.
There are now no more than 27,000 orang utans. They live on just two islands in Asia — Sumatra and Borneo. The only great ape found outside Africa.
Over the years orang utans have been hunted by poachers, their forests destroyed by loggers and farmers. That so many have survived here in Kalimantan, is due to one woman — Dr Birute Galdikas
It’s 23 years since Dr Galdikas and her first husband ventured up the Sekonyer River in a dug-out canoe.
GALDIKAS: At the time that I paddled up it was raining, it was drizzling rain, and the forest, on either side of the river, it looked very forbidding. And very dark.
Inspired by Jane Goodall’s study of chimpanzees, and Dian Fossey’s work with gorillas, the young college graduate wanted to observe the other great primate — the orang utan.
GALDIKAS: I was very curious about orang utans. I wanted to find out everything there was to know about how wild orang utans lived.
Dr Galdikas established her research base in what is now Tanjung Puting National Park. She called it Camp Leakey, after Louis Leakey, the famed anthropologist who sponsored her mission as well as those of Fossey and Goodall.
Today Dr Galdikas has a house and family down river. But Camp Leakey is where she spends most time. This is home.
The early days around camp were bedlam. Dr Galdikas soon found herself not only scientist, but mother, nurse and role model for an unwieldy brood of orphaned and ex-captive orang utans.
Dr. BIRUTE GALDIKAS (Primatologist): There were orang utans tearing up my mattress, there were orang utans turning on the radio, there were orang utan trying to put eggs and flour together and stirring them, trying to make pancakes, which they’d seen our cook do. There were orang utan literally climbing up the walls. There were orang utan carrying mosquito nets into the trees and making their own little, you know, putting mosquito nets over their nest.
GALDIKAS: Siswe, I want you to come over here, sit by me if you want. No, no, I’m not going to share.
Siswe is one of the old timers. She was the first orang utan born at Camp Leakey.
Now a mother herself, and living in the wild, she still drops in regularly, for coffee, just as her mother used to.
(Siswe takes coffee cup)
GALDIKAS: I just had a feeling this would happen. Somehow I just knew this would happen. I just knew this would happen. This is what happens to my morning coffee. Impossible to drink it here. I just stay inside the house. Well Siswe certainly is one of my favourite characters, and I’ve noticed that Siswe does exactly as her mother did before her. That Siswe learned from her mother, you know, her mother’s friendship with me. And Siswe is a very smart orang utan.
REPORTER: What makes orang utans special?
GALDIKAS: I think everything about them. Their intelligence, their curiosity, their gentleness, their appearance, their behaviour, everything. And also the fact that they are very, very closely related to humans. When you look into the eyes of an orang utan, the eyes that are reflected back are basically our own.
Like humans, orang utans have a great capacity for learning. Sixteen years ago, Dr Gary Shapiro spent several months at Camp Leakey, teaching sign language to a young orang utan called Princess. Binti — Dr Galdikas’s son — learnt at the same time. And the two youngsters were often seen conversing.
Princess is still a quick learner, but these days she’s giving priority to more practical skills.
WOMAN: There you go. Good girl. Beautiful.
For all the antics of the camp, orang utans lead simple and solitary lives grazing in the forest treetops.
Dr Galdikas has spent most her days following them, documenting their habits and charting their life cycle.
Today, the Professor has students and assistants to help her track wild orang utans such as Pete, pregnant with her second child.
For years however, Dr Galdikas went out on her own. She once followed an orang utan for 100 days, noting its every move, resting only after it had nested for the night.
GALDIKAS: I would get so lonely that I would look up into the trees and feel this yearning to be friends with that wild orang utan I was following. And the wild orang utan would look down at me and I saw no such yearning in her eyes. An orang utan is genetically programmed by millions of years of evolution to live alone. You know, orang utans can be Clint Eastwood, orang utans can turn their backs after all is said and done and ride off into the sunset. But we humans, our evolution really never gave us that privilege. When we do that, we are turning our backs on our own biology.
Dr Galdikas has seen what other primatologists have only read about — blood-curdling fights between jealous males, orang utans mating and giving birth. Most of the time, however, this is not an exciting spectator sport.
GALDIKAS: Basically their lives consist of eating fruit, eating more fruit and eating more fruit.
REPORTER: How important is this forest for the survival of the orang utan?
GALDIKAS: Well, if this forest were opened up, the orang utans in this area would go extinct. It’s that simple.
Timber is one of Indonesia’s most valuable exports, and there’s a lot of it around Camp Leakey. On the river bordering Tanjung Puting National Park there’s a regular flow of timber rafts, all making their way to the sawmills.
This haul is worth about $400. Not easy money, but by local standards, big money.
There are stiff penalties for illegal loggers in Indonesia, but the truth is, out here the laws are difficult to police. This is an illegal logging camp, one of many just across the river from Tanjung Puting National Park. When the people here heard our speedboats arrive, they took off into the forest.
Today, at least, Dr Galdikas has the Indonesian authorities behind her. A couple of years ago, it looked like she’d be kicked out of the park, when powerful opponents within the Forestry Ministry sought to cancel her research permit.
Bupati Darman addressing student group Schwartz: Her staunch ally through that time was Bupati Darman, the provincial administrator. He says the key to orang utan survival is striking a balance between development and conservation.
BUPATI DARMAN (Provincial Administrator): If we don’t use the timber, then it’s useless. Industry is important, but so it the environment. There must be a balance. And now the government in particular with help from orang utan experts is doing good things in conservation.
GALDIKAS: Why don’t you just do the fresh samples?
STUDENT: Okay.
Back at Camp Leakey, Siswe is up to her old tricks.
GALDIKAS: She says I want a food sample too, after all I’m an orang utan and that’s an orang utan food sample.
Dr Galdikas never tires of such encounters. These orang utan are like family. Even so, the Professor realises she can’t stay here forever. That there must be others ready to take her place.
GALDIKAS: Well sooner or later we all have to leave. one way or another, we all have to deal with age, we all have to deal with health problems, we all have to deal with those issues. So I hope when that day comes, that I have to deal with those issues, that there will be people who will be ready to carry on the work that I began here 23 years ago.