It was Earth Day on the 22nd of April. On this day in 1970, during a period of widespread pollution and devil-may-care attitudes towards nature, 20 million people in the United States, spurred on by books like Silent Spring and riding the energy behind the anti-Vietnam-War marches, took to the streets to demand better protections for the environment. The demonstration and others like it eventually led to, among other environmental victories, Republican President Richard Nixon’s creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency (the White House’s current Republican inhabitant should take note) and the passing of the Endangered Species Act that very same year.
The latter legacy of the first Earth Day is particularly significant now, as the theme for Earth Day 2019 (the 29th since Earth Day was made international in 1990) is endangered species conservation. Masarang Foundation helps protect a wide variety of endangered species by supporting the Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre and the Sintang Orangutan Centre. We will write more about the Sintang Orangutan Centre later soon, so will concentrate on Tasikoki today.
Tasikoki is located at a strategic rendezvous point in Northern Sulawesi for wildlife traffickers and bushmeat hunters to trade their ill-gotten goods, the Centre is ideally placed to tackle the wildlife trade head on, collaborating with law enforcement agencies both in directly helping to enact wildlife protection laws and in spreading awareness of the wildlife trade, its illegality and its effects on animal populations and whole ecosystems. Through this collaboration, the centre has helped to rescue countless animals over the years from all over the Indonesian archipelago, including several endangered ones such as orang-utans, sun bears, crested black macaques and many an illegally traded parrot species.
Of course, that’s only part of what happens here. Once the animals have been rescued, then begins the hard work of nursing them back to health (which has often been affected by poor treatment and malnourishment during trafficking), returning them to the wild if possible, and all the upkeep and husbandry work in between. And with the wildlife trade as persistent a problem as it is, a constant stream of new arrivals coming in puts the centre under the constant financial strain of having to expand and upgrade its facilities.
Happily, Tasikoki is up to the challenge, thanks to the dedication of its full time staff and a regular influx of volunteers. Masarang offers an attractive working experience for volunteers from all over the world from Finland to Indonesia to the Netherlands and of course, Hong Kong. Whether they are school students on a field trip or completing course related experience abroad or university students broadening their experience, as long as they have a passion for the environment and endangered wildlife, they are welcome to apply to volunteer here.
SFCA Yung Yau College Tasikoki Team presenting their donated items at the start of their week’s visit to Tasikoki last week. With most grateful thanks to the kind and generous sponsorship of Mr Billy Yung
As well as feeding and cleaning out enclosures, one of the most important tasks done by Tasikoki staff and volunteers is providing enrichment for the animals. That is, activities or objects intended to entertain them or allow them to carry out their natural behaviours as best as possible in a captive environment. Enrichment can constitute anything from putting food in holes for sun bears to lick out as they would termites from their mound, to something as simple as a pile of freshly collected branches in an enclosure. Providing enrichment is particularly important for the primates and parrots at Tasikoki, whose large brains and considerable cognitive abilities demand that they be kept stimulated for their mental wellbeing.
The Masarang Foundation has even managed to find an innovative solution to help Tasikoki’s financial restrictions that also directly benefits the endangered animals still out there in the wild. In an ongoing agro-forestry project pioneered by its founder, Dr. Willie Smits, Masarang sells sugar produced from the sap of the arenga palm tree. As this tree can only grow in healthy plant communities, the production of large enough amounts of palm sugar to turn a profit necessitates the re-growing of vast swathes of rainforest. Furthermore, because the sap ferments within just a few hours of collection, all processing of it has to be done on site by local villagers. This ensures that all profits from the sugar go directly to them, thereby incentivising them to protect the existing rainforest, grow more rainforest and not sell their land to the palm oil companies. Through this project, once desolate plains and slopes have been restored to thriving rainforest ecosystems within as little as five years.
If you would like to help support the Masarang Foundation’s invaluable work, please consider booking a long or short-term visit to Tasikoki or apply to be a volunteer via volunteer@tasikoki.org. Alternatively, if you can’t afford the time for that, why not make a donation via Masarang HK or buy a bag or two of their sugar? And finally, though we are celebrating Earth Day, please think of all the other ways you can assist the recovery of our planet throughout the year through the small, but significant changes you and everyone else can make to their lifestyle.
Thank you.
The Masarang HK Team
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