ROUGHING IT IN MAWAS – PART 4, CAMP RELEASE TO BATAMPANG

January 14, 2013. Spending only one night at Camp Release was not enough. I was really sorry that I had to leave the next morning. Apart from the fact that there is no internet connection (but there is phone reception at certain points throughout the camp, providing you stand still and don’t move an inch), I think I could live here forever. Well, maybe not forever, but definitely a few weeks.

Unfortunately, after breakfast we were back on the kelotok. We said goodbye to Camp Release and were on our way. One and a half hours later, we arrived at a tiny camp, Rantau Upak.

Rantau Upak was also set up as monitoring camp, mainly to monitor, spot and combat forest fires. Additionally, Sumadi, our staff who is based at Rantau Upak, also collects climate/weather data. The data helps us predict the right times to increase monitoring activities, such as during dry seasons.

Rantau Upak to Batampang
Continuing our journey, we finally exited the intertwining canals into one of Borneo’s major rivers, the Barito River. We were no longer in Kapuas District, but in South Barito District. The fact that it took us two days to reach it shows the extensive working area of the Mawas Conservation Program. It is very big!

As we were now on a great river, we could switch back to using a speedboat. Sumadi dropped us off at a small town by the riverside where we had lunch at a simple food stall while waiting for our rented speedboat to arrive. Boarding the speedboat, we also said goodbye to Samsul, Udin, Indra and Sumadi who had to return to their stations on their kelotoks.  Our last stop on this fourth day of the trip was the Batampang Village.

Batampang Village
The village was sadly flooded when we arrived. Instead of a riverside village like many that we had passed and visited along the way, Batampang looked like a floating village in the middle of vast waters. The gravel roads in the village were all submerged in knee-deep waters.

Even sadder, flood has become a regular thing for the residents of Batampang since the forest upriver has been heavily logged. For them, the impact of deforestation is not a theory in textbooks or a story in newspapers. It is real. It is happening on a regular basis. Because of the flood, they cannot farm so vegetables and fruits are hard to come by. They must buy these precious commodities in the nearest town, which is Buntok, around 3-4 hours by kelotok.

Staying at a local resident’s house for the night, we had a taste of their daily menu as Serla – the owner of the house – served us dinner of only fish and rice. It was a sobering reality for me, a far cry from all modern conveniences that I’m accustomed to. The house, although very clean, does not have a bathroom. There is a small room in the back where the wood flooring on one corner is set slightly ajar for the women of the house to pee at nighttime. Other than that, one has to go to the public toilet by the river. Admittedly, my flexibility in terms of comfort was put to extreme test. In the end, I decided to skip my daily shower and only went to the toilet when absolutely necessary.

The condition of the village highlights the importance of community development work in the area. Funded by the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) and BOS Swiss, the Mawas team has initiated a capacity building and micro finance project for the residents of Batampang. Progress is slow due to the regular flood, but community development efforts continue nevertheless. Working groups have been set up and socialization work is scheduled to start very soon, as soon as the village dries up.

Read also: ROUGHING IT IN MAWAS-PART 3, CAMP TUANAN TO CAMP RELEASE

End of the Journey
January 15, 2013. The next morning, we were picked up by a water taxi – a common inter-village public transportation in Borneo – and headed to Buntok. We took turns taking a long shower in our office in Buntok and had lunch, then returned by road to Palangka Raya that very same day.

The micro finance project in Batampang as well as a similar project by the BOS Swiss in Timpah Village, which we visited on our way back from Buntok to Palangka Raya, will be the last update that I will share with you in this “Mawas Series”. Expect to read it on our website in a few weeks.

It is my hope that I haven’t bored you with the details of this trip. I think many of you sitting in front of your internet-connected device right now, reading this story, is one of the privileged few who are educated and well accustomed to modern conveniences just like me. My only goal at this point is to hopefully make you realize that Mawas is such an important program to showcase the magnitude of conservation efforts that must be done to protect our valuable natural resources and how important it is for us – the ones with buying and bargaining power – to tweak and adjust our lifestyles here and there, so we can continue to enjoy modern conveniences and comfort, guilt-free.

While orangutan rehabilitation and reintroduction programs must continue, they are – we hope – only a short-term solution. Programs like Mawas and also RHOI (Indonesia’s Orangutan Habitat Restoration) provide the long-term sustainable future for orangutans and their habitat.

Stay tuned for more Mawas stories in the weeks to come!