After our long day up in the mountains we headed to Roland's to plan ahead for the rest of the time Mandy and Ross were with us. The plan that was decided on was to head to the office the next day check what else needed to be done, have a chat with Matt to try to set methods before heading to the forest and then the next day we'd head to the Unit Patroli Gajah or Elephant Patrol Camp which was just outside the National Park and our field site in Sikundur for four days and then Mandy and Ross would stay on for another three days to records the felled trees in the logged area and take a number of GPS points.
Once the meeting had finished Matt introduced us to Adji from Orang Utan Coffee who they share the office with. Orang Utan Coffee is an expanding business working with local coffee bean farmers to bring they're farms under a strict set of Oran Utan Guidelines. These guidelines are a combination of the Indonesian National Standards for Organic Farming SNI which are essentially the same as the Swiss organic farming standards as well as some additional requirements. Along with not using any agricultural chemicals (fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides) farmers also agree not to clear any tropical rainforest to expand they're farms and commit to not hunting, catching or trading any protected species of animal or plant. This is a great model for a business and showing that conservation and economics can actually go hand in hand and not at adds with each other as is usually perceived. As well as being organic it is also fairtrade with farmers being paid a extra 0.50 EUR/kg of green bean for their commitment to protecting tropical rainforest and sticking to the guidelines. Along with the farmers PanEco also receives a bonus of 0.50 EUR/kg of green bean exported Orang Utan Coffee to support the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme.
Currently though they are having issues trying to get international organic certification, this is not because they don't fit the standards as they are already Indonesian certified, the problem is to get international certification they have to get inspectors out and pay for the certification each year and it isn't a small amount, try $20,000 a year! This is ridiculous when the business is already fair trade and organic, so costs more to produce and produces less, it's no wonder that organic products are so expensive when the overheads are so high before anything has been produced. However Orang Utan Coffee is for sale in Europe and the UK, you can find it in Waitrose in the UK for around £5 a bag, which for single origin, organic coffee is pretty cheap. As well as coffee in Sumatra they also receive numerous samples each week from coffee growers across Indonesia and those that they like they are considering bringing into the business. They have also started looking at tea, I tried a lovely tea the other day that Adji offered me. It was a deep golden colour (similar to Chinese tea), with a very mild flavour but quite sweet though no sugar had been added, if they start selling this in the UK I'll definitely buy some.
After all the talks of the business, Adji finally started brewing some coffee and showed us the lab. In the small space was numerous coffee machines from small grinders up to the one he was most proud of, with 3 boilers and wifi connectivity, it cost $7000 which to me is insane but coffee makers and aficionado's will probably disagree. Finally when he poured it he brought out espresso's for everyone, those of you that know me know much I hate the taste of coffee, so I was thrilled with this. Still I didn't want to seem like some stubborn kid so I tried it, it smelled lovely but the taste was instant bitterness, unbelievably strong coffee. Annoyingly I couldn't hold back my grimace, but I quickly apologised and told them I'm not a fan of coffee, I'm a tea drinker (which is why Adji asked me to try the tea the other day). Everyone else seemed to like it though, just not me, but I'm a little strange that way. If you want to find out more about them follow this link: http://orang-utan-coffee.com/
 |
| The Orang Utan Coffee lab |
 |
| The Beast as I call it |
The next morning we brought all our gear down to the hotel reception and luckily were allowed to store the majority of our things in a store room at the hotel, this meant all I had to take with me was some field clothes, wash stuff, sleeping bag and equipment. This made the whole experience a lot easier especially when we found out the 4x4 pick-up we were putting our stuff into was also going to take all of Graeme's (the drone pilot and researcher) stuff including multiple drones and equipment that pretty much filled the back of the pick-up. Once everything was loaded up we got into the other car whilst Graeme and David (the other drone guy) and Matt got into the pick-up and then we got under way. The journey wasn't too bad, we passed a lot of houses that had been flooded though in recent rains, though the roads were still fine. It took about 4 hours and once we'd turned of the tarmac onto dirt and gravel tracks going through the oil palm plantations our pace slowed a bit and when we finally reach a fork in the road the 4x4 went off to the right straight to the camp whilst he carried on down to the river where we'd catch a boat to the camp as our car wouldn't be able to follow the same route as the 4x4 as the roads were too bad.
When we got to the river we found a few small building' on the river bank and as we looked out to the river a small ferry raft transporting some guys on motorbikes and scooters from the other side of the river to ours. Watching these guys slowly cross the river whilst waiting for the boat was an interesting distraction and really helped to cement that we weren't in the city any more. When the boat finally came we were met with a 10m long wooden boat looking more like half a tree than a boat. We first loaded up the bags at the front and then the girls, stupidly I decided to keep my camera bag on my back when I should have just taken the camera out. Trying to get into a boat 10m long but only about a meter wide is hard enough, when you factor in a 14kg bag on your back and being the worlds clumsiest person, things are never going to go well. As soon as I tried stepping into the boat I slipped back on the bank and very quickly ended up in a triceps dip holding the boat with my outstretched legs and myself up out of the river with my arms stretched behind me. Thankfully Ross grabbed hold of my bag and kept me from slipping into the river, though I still had to pull the boat in as it was too far out of reach for the others, so I ended up giving my abs more exercise than they've had in years. Finally with the boat pulled in and feeling more than a bit embarrassed I took my seat in the boat and readied myself for the journey.
Once in the boat the journey wasn't too bad, at least for a bum numbing, leaky, cramped wooden boat that is. We did however get to see our first monkeys of the trip, some long tailed macaques and two water monitors (lizards related to Komodo dragons though not quite as big or scary, though they still can get over 2m long!). Along the river we passed countless oil palms but also plenty of beautiful sections of rainforest. Whilst passing these I started to get the feel for it again and at times felt like I was back in Peru where I did my dissertation field work back in 2011. The only thing that was missing was the sight and sound of macaws and parrots flying over and the smell. It sounds like such a strange thing but other rainforests, at lest Peru and Borneo where I've been have had a distinctive smell. A scent like fresh earth, the smell of fallen autumn leaves a deeply natural smell, not offensive or obvious, but when you've smelt it and lived around it for months before and when you come somewhere like this you notice it's absence. It is the fragrance of life, nature at it's fullest, wildest ad unbridled. Here though the smell was sweeter, softer, less earthy this could be that the site is on the edge of the National Park and the high numbers of villages and palm oil plantations nearby or could be just a change because of the soil type being different or even the higher fruit yields in Sumatra and it's higher productivity changing it. I don't really know but to for me it was different, I don't really know how, it just was.
As we neared the camp I saw a bull elephant just up river down on the river bank, this was my first sighting of a wild Asian elephant, though it was all too brief as we pulled into the bank and finally reached the camp. Luckily getting off the boat was a lot easier than getting on. Once we'd all got on land safely and picked up our bags we took the quick walk up to the the camp and were met with a wide area of grass surrounded by parkland type trees and in the middle a couple of buildings which were the bedrooms and a large covered open area with tables for meetings and eating in, it was a lot nicer than I expected and would be amazing to use as a field school for taking students to and was something both Mandy and Ross discussed at length. As I wandered about a bit more I found the path into the forest and just to the right of it I saw one of the more distressing things I've seen here. This was a young elephant chained to a tree by his tusks, he was not happy to be there and was calling loudly and straining and tugging against the chain to get free. At the time I was shocked to see this and afterwards I found out why it was and though it makes sense, it still doesn't sit quite right with me. Apparently the young male had been separated from the rest of the group as he'd started to become aggressive to the others and the rangers, which happens when male elephants go through their musth which is a period of raised reproductive hormones which makes them incredibly dangerous and aggressive. Also they couldn't have him wandering on his own both because of the danger he'd pose but also because there's wild elephants in the area and they wouldn't tolerate his presence in the area and would likely either drive him off or kill him. So as horrible as it looked it was for the elephants benefit, but I would still like to have seen him kept in better conditions.
After I'd had enough of looking at the elephant straining against his chain I decided to head back to camp, on the way I started to here this buzzing noise, the next second it grew louder and started to head to me sounding like a thousand angry hornets with a megaphone! Turns out it was the guys testing out their quadcopter drone before using it for proper data collection. After they'd tested the little drone the guys broke out the big boys, their fixed wing drones. Basically these look like small remote controlled planes made out of polystyrene and look like a tiny breeze would break them, however they're actually really strong and take quite a beating from the landings and some crashes and barely show any damage. Also the advantage of being made out of polystyrene is that they're a lot cheaper to replace the bodies if they get broken than a drone made of plastic or metal.
A lot about drones has been in the news over the past few years, and on balance I think a lot of it has been more negative than positive. This has either been due to the use of drones by military's for reconnaissance or remotely engaging targets or negative press from drones being misused by the public and hobbyists. Misuse by the general public is why the US now has some of the most stringent laws governing the use of drones by non-military personnel. The issue of this though is that it also affects research and researchers who use drones with conservation being one of the fastest growing uses for drones as their ability to map and monitor large areas cheaply and easily is allowing both conservationists and governments to track changes in forest cover, illegal logging, poachers and even monitor animal populations such as herds of elephants and even counting orang-utan nests from the air! It is these that the SOCP are using drones to monitor as well as through using certain software able to build a point cloud, similar to a 3D model of the forest sites, which I'm hoping to use along with my ground vegetation data for quantifying forest structure.
 |
| The quadcopter drone, only small with a camera mounted underneath, yet it sounds like a thousand angry hornets! |
 |
 |
| Graeme launching the drone, though it's only small and looks fragile, it took a good few bumps and was able to do flights up and down the site of around 50km before it needed to land to recharge! Certainly a lot more efficient than a person! |
After the drones had been launched, we all headed back to the main part of camp where Graeme had his computer set up tracking the drones flight and where it could all be controlled from though most of it's flight is already pre-programmed the only time anyone actually takes over is during take off and landings. The flight's took about 2 hours and when it was coming in to land, everything became a hurry with Dave or one of the others taking over on the computer to set it's altitude and Graeme out with the remote ready to take over and land it whilst all of us watched cameras at the ready. From the stories the guys had been telling us they'd had a few problems with landings in the past and a good few crashes, however whilst we were there every single landing was flawless....Well except one where a gust of wind last minute knocked it a little and sent it straight at me and just skimmed my head with it's wing. Great sequence of photo's, I can't upload them at the moment but if I can work out how to make them into a GIF I'll upload it at a later time.
After all the excitement of the drone landing, we all came together to discuss the plans for the next few days and what we were going to do. What was decided was to get up early the next morning to practice the method for the girls research in conducting vocalisation surveys for gibbons, siamangs and Thomas langurs and then afterwards practice setting a transect and make sure everyone knew how to use a compass and travel in a straight line through the forest to set the transects. As soon as we'd finished our discussion food was brought out for dinner, I'd love to tell you it was delicious and really memorable but honestly I can't remember it at all, something that had chicken, some random overcooked greens and rice and all served at Indonesians favourite temperature, cold. After eating, once they turned the lights on though I was quickly distracted from any other work by the huge number of insects that started appearing around the lights and one the ground including some amazing stag beetles and rhino beetles which I was more than happy to spend the rest of the night lying on the ground with my 105mm macro lens pointed at beetles trying to get as close as possible. I think the photo's turned out pretty well and completely worth the strange looks I got from both the Indonesian staff and the other researchers!
Once I'd finally had enough of taking photo's of beetles and the strange looks from the others I finally headed off to bed. The next day, we were up bright and early at 4:30am pulling my boots on and grabbing my bag and head torch and heading off to sit in the dark and listen out for primates. Luckily we didn't head off too far into the forest ad found a spot that wasn't too wet to sit at and wait and listen. I always find there's something odd and I feel uneasy being in a forest in the dark, whether in the UK or a tropical rainforest. It may be some primeval human instinct from when our ancestors feared the forest at night as that's where the predators lived or it could just be that I really don't like the dark and always had a fear as a child of it and what lies waiting in the dark corners where the light can't reach. Needless to say if you've never sat in a forest at night and just listened it's something you need to try and is very difficult to describe the way that sounds seem to come from all around and how things can be above you as well as on the ground can be even more unsettling. I'm very glad I didn't have to do it on my own and won't have to either, fair play to the girls when they have to do it. Whilst sat there we didn't actually hear any gibbons or siamangs though we did ear a number of Thomas langurs, whose call I can only describe as like an incredibly deep and rough belly laugh by a very heavy smoker, if you have the time have a look for it on youtube.
On our way back to camp though at 7:30 we did actually hear the gibbons start to call from over the river. Of all sounds of the rainforest it's the gibbons call that I love the most. The gibbons call is actually territorial with each group singing to set out their territory and let others know they're their. The loudest call is actually by the female who leads the group and shorted deeper calls fill in between from the males. The females call is a high pitched whooping that starts of slow and then builds to a quick set of whoops, very difficult to describe. What was best that day though was that a young female was shadowing the call of the lead, sounding like an echo as the young one practised how to sing. As their calls built the males joined in with their deeper calls and finally building to what gibbon researchers call a great call. The way I describe it does it no justice, I can't recommend enough going on youtube and looking up gibbon calls, the guys we were listening to were white handed gibbons, though we also hear siamangs which are even louder.
Once the gibbons had finished their song, we headed back to camp to grab a quick breakfast before heading back out again. The breakfast deserves even less description than the dinner the night before, it fed me that's all that can be said. After everyone had ate, we filled our water bottles and headed off back into the forest to find a good trail to practice setting our transects on. One the way though we heard the sound of a moped engine heading toward us so we all stepped to one side and as the moped came round the corner the driver stopped in front of us and hopped off. He introduced himself as Supra and that he's the camp manager at Sikundur, he's the one who'd be looking after us over the next 6 months while we're at camp. He said that he was on his way to meet James one of the other researchers at Sikundur who's research focused on orangutan long calls and who I'm also working together with on a camera trapping project on the side in Sikundur and that there was an orangutan about 15 minutes walk away, so of course we couldn't say no. Since then I've learnt that if one of the assistants says it's not far in the forest, that means it's not far in normal distances but travelling any distance in Sikundur takes much longer and is way harder due to all the hills and roots and branches in the way. 10 minutes into the death march we met James stood in the middle of a small clearing holding up a speaker connected to his iphone playing orangutan calls out loud to see if he could get a reaction. After brief introductions Supra told James about the orangutan and we set off again looking for the illusive red ape.
Finally we got to a small stream with a couple of assistants sat about with their notepads out. Again we all made our introductions, though I felt a bit awkward as I was sweating that much I probably would have been drier if I'd jumped in the river! Anyway we asked where the orangutan was and they pointed straight up, looking up I saw nothing except some leaves and an area where the leaf cover was a bit thicker. So again I asked where's the orangutan? Once again they pointed up at the leaves, then finally grasping that they were pointing at a nest and the orangutan was in the nest, asked if there was anywhere we could see it but we weren't in luck. Apparently the orangutan was a female and had briefly left the nest earlier in the morning and then returned and had been resting for the last few hours, so this was a little disappointing. Luckily Supra asked the other assistants if there were any others near and apparently there was another orangutan just up the hill, so of course as we'd already came most of the way to see this one we went the short way to see the other.
 |
| Off down the trail to start our work |
 |
| Biologists in action and Ross caught taking the photo, so I like to think of this as the making of the biologists in action photo |
 |
| Matt leading the group |
 |
| How we first met James, playing his odd taste in music out loud in the forest, I mean seriously who listens to orangutan long calls for fun? Haha |
When we finally reached the top of the hill we met another couple of the assistants and very quickly asked them di mana orangutan? Again like the last time they pointed up and again all I could see with leaves. At times like that you either start to doubt your eye sight or think everyone's just playing a very mean joke on you, even more so when everyone else starts crying out "oh yeah", "oh he's beautiful" "so amazing" and all you can see is green. Still I kept looking and eventually I finally spotted him, hiding at the top of a tree with just a hand and a foot sticking out between the branches. Eventually though he started to get up and then we were treated to great views of him feeding on the bark of the tree and every so often having a huge lump of bark drop between us that he'd chewed and finished with. This was great as a first proper sighting of a Sumatran orangutan in the wild, the only problem now was trying to get a decent photo! The next 30 minutes were spent looking stright up whilst stumbling around, eye looking through the viewfinder of my camera trying to get a decent shot of his face. Finally I got a couple, they're by no means the best, but for now they'll do until I get to see one closer in the future.
Once the orangutan had gone back to hiding and our necks could take no more looking upwards, we headed back to camp. There I got to play around with my camera a bit and found an awesome little lizard who seemed more than happy to pose and let my get close enough to get some amazing shots, and the same with a beautiful red dragonfly who obligingly perched on a small twig right in the path in front of me. These so far are some of my favourite photos of the trip other than those from Jogja, hope you like them.
When I'd finally finished geeking out with my camera it was time to get to work. The next couple of days were spent practising laying transects and quadrats and finalising our methods. A couple of bit with the vegetation surveys had to be altered such as the method for counting branches and our classifications of crown shapes, these though we probably wouldn't have been able to do without Mandy and Ross's guidance. Also during this time I started to think more about my project and what was feasible and what stood out the most was that what I'd planned regarding locomotion and recording positional behaviours would be almost impossible. It has been done before but by people with more expertise in the area and training in recording that type of data but for my project and with all it's other parts the effort required by this one section didn't seem to be worth it, especially as it would be covering already proven ground. So during this time I chatted with Ross, Mandy and Matt a lot about my project and what it is that I wanted to look at and we finally came up with a solid idea. So this year I'd be focusing on collecting forest structure data from transects and plots and conduct nest surveys as before, but now collect data about the vegetation around each nest so that I could look in detail about what aspects of forest structure affect nest site choice and tree choice. Then next year I'd still look at locomotion, but no longer looking at positional behaviours and recording each movement, but focusing on travel paths and gap crossing. So in essence I'd look at which trees they chose to move between and what type of branches and methods they use to cross between them, this is important as when forests are cleared or certain trees removed it could make it harder for orangutan's to travel through the forest and therefore increase daily energy expenditure, making it harder to survive.
After a couple of days of the practising surveys and finalising methods the time came to head back to the city to try to get our last set of permits so that we could finally start our research. While we were leaving, Mandy and Ross were going to stay to take GPS points for the point clouds and investigate some areas near the river where locals had cleared some sections of forest a few months earlier. So we said our goodbyes and hopped into the 4x4 and headed back to Medan.
Hope you enjoyed this post, in the next I'll cover getting my last permits and my first month in Sikundur. It's probably not going to be as long as the last couple of posts, but we'll see.
 |
| Team photo, starting from the top and working clockwise: Rosanna, Ross, Helen, Matt, Me and Mandy. |
