Chris Marsh- LEAP Student Project Blog
After spending nearly 4 months conducting research in the lowland Sikundur site (conducting audio arrays and vegetation surveys), Emma Hankinson and I were able to join the LEAP project student trip in Ketambe. At first, this was quite the shock. After spending so much time in the forest with only four other people, bumbling my way through (very) broken Indonesian, accompanying 10 energetic students was a little daunting, but they’re immediate connection and wonder at the beautiful Ketambe research station, nestled in a valley between Mount Kembar and Mount Leuser was infectious and refreshing.
At Ketambe, we taught students the fundamentals of the audio array (spatial explicit capture-recapture) method, which Emma and I have used to conduct population density surveys of vocalising animals (in our case: orang-utans, siamangs, gibbons and Thomas leaf monkeys). Despite the 4am start, our small team took to the task with gusto, not only recording the locations of orangutans and Thomas leaf monkeys by their calls, but also being lucky enough to witness a territorial dispute between rival Thomas leaf monkey groups and a passing adolescent female orangutan seen feeding above two audio array posts.
Arwin, the camp manager at Ketambe, took the group on several walks through the Ketambe trail system and expertly located a female orangutan with a small baby feeding high in canopy. A breath taking moment for us all, and a real inspiration for our budding conservation scientists. Ketambe itself cannot help but be an inspiration, a multitude of enormous old-growth trees, waterfalls, hills and ridges, not only introduce the majesty of tropical forests, but also provide views onto the surrounding landscape. Whilst much of the forest at Ketambe remains untouched, large areas have been cleared for farmland and settlements in recent years, which our ever enthusiastic guide and mentor Dr Amanda Korstjens, who conducted research at Ketambe some 20 years ago, could identify.
After learning other methods for biodiversity monitoring, such as setting non-invasive butterfly traps, our team of intrepid conservationist travelled north (via Medan due to poor roads) to East Aceh. Here we travelled to Serbajadi Aceh Timur where a committed group of wildlife action responders use the latest technology and some low-tech mitigation techniques to curb human-wildlife conflict, protecting elephants, tigers and orangutans from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict. At their newest wildlife monitoring camp, the group had the privilege of interacting with the team’s elephant patrol. These elephants, once ‘trouble elephants’ that repeatedly invaded farmland, were destined to be the recipients of the often aggressive and sometimes lethal efforts of farmers to protect their crops, are now used by the wildlife response team to reduce the amount of damage caused by wild elephants when other mitigation methods have failed.
Today, the team visited the Leuser Conservation Forum offices, where Rudi Putra and Tezar Pahlevie gave a presentation about the work of the Leuser Conservation Forum. This presentation highlighted the thoughtful, dedicated work of the forum and their NGO partners. It’s clear they know what actions need to be taken, which are most cost-effective, the way forward for protecting the Leuser Ecosystem and the biodiversity contained with it, but the same issue came up again and again, the lack of government funds or action to tackle some of the biggest issues – conversion of rainforest for plantations, deforestation and its long-term impacts, addressing poaching and international trade in wildlife. It served as a stark reminder that whilst our LEAP project tries to address ecological issues at the landscape scale, tropical forest and biodiversity conservation is linked to almost every aspect of life. Political and economic decisions at the national level - agricultural and governance at the local scale, touching upon the basics building blocks of society; access to water, food, education and healthcare.
For me, and I’m sure for every one for the LEAP project’s students, I found myself asking, “Wow, the issues are so big….so daunting…how do I even begin to help?”, and looking around that room, full of students, some embarking on their first year in their degrees, some considering masters programs, the answer became quite clear – help any way you can. Take your personal skill set and apply it to the problem. If you’re a people person, conduct surveys and round-table groups with local people, question forest officials, raise funds at home and spread awareness of the issues. If you’re an ornithologist, study the impacts of birds and how to combat bird poaching; if you’re an entomologist, study the insects that may improve or hamper agricultural production. The list goes on, but the message from the last week of travel throughout Sumatra has been loud and clear. We, as the LEAP project, as a university, as a people and country have to do something. The Leuser Ecosystem is too valuable to allow its degradation and destruction through mismanagement and misunderstanding.
