Masarang HK Society Limited 青山綠水協會有限公司

We are going to start an ‘Orang-utan-a-Week’ article series and hope you will enjoy learning more about the wonderful orang-utans at the Sintang facility.  There are currently 27 rescued adults, adolescents and babies being cared for at the centre. Many of the older orang-utans have been kept for many years illegally or semi illegally by their “owners”. Several of them were with powerful people in the local communities. It was not easy to free them because of those persons influence and the perceived risk by the forestry officials. However, all of the young orang-utans we are caring for started the same way, nammely, having their mothers killed, mostly due to habitat loss and poaching. Some of their mothers were eaten as bushmeat, others were killed when raiding gardens of local people.’There are 11 babies requiring a great deal of love and care, as well as education at ‘forest school’, this is so they learn how to be able to fend for themselves when they are released into the wild. We are going to start the series with one of the babies, namely ‘Gagas’.

Gagas is sweet, sensitive and never bites, but does get a bit naughty (rolling on the floor crying!) when food is offered and he isn’t first to get it! He arrived at the centre on 21 January last year and is now about 3 years old. He is an active little fellow always up to something, but this usually happens low down as he doesnot seem to like to climb very high, neither in the socialisation enclosure nor in forest school! In addition, while climbing he likes to use the small flexible branches, that easily break and then he falls. However, letting himself fall on the forest floor is just his way of playing exciting games. We hope he will soon change his ways because for a wild orang-utan it could be dangerous to behave like that.  Orang-utans usually spend all their time in the trees since there could be snakes and other dangerous creatures on the ground, which could bite and injure the orang-utans. In addition, Gagas could seriously hurt himself if he falls from greater heights.

Gagas is not the best nest builder. When the babies get browse in their sleeping baskets, that are purposely placed high in their enclosure to simulate the nests in the forest where they will soon go, he likes to take all of it out and bring the leaf material to the ground to play with. To motivate him to climb higher, we take him out to the forest school with specially selected other orang-utan babies that are better at climbing. For instance, when Gagas goes to the forest with Bembi or Iga he has to follow them higher up in the trees or he will be left alone on the ground. When he goes to the trees together with Terra or Ribang all of them tend to put in less effort in climbing, so it is important for us to carefully observe all the orang-utans all the time to see how we can motivate them the best to adopt natural behaviour.

In some ways, Gagas is rather a naughty baby, as he likes to take things away from Terra and other smaller babies! Luckily, because of his still rudimentary climbing skills, he is usually less successful because Terra and others can get away quickly.However, everybody has a special skill and Gagas’s special skill is the ability to solve complicated problems. For instance, when we were using enrichment with (palm-oil free) peanut butter he demonstrated what a smart boy he is! We applied the peanut butter to the underside of one of the platforms in the baby socialisation enclosure and the babies had to hold on to the boards and pull themselves up with widespread arms in order to lick off the sticky delicacy from the underside. Gagas was the first orang-utan to figure out that there was an easier way to do this! He grabbed one of the tyres, put it on its side underneath the platform, and stood on top of it whilst keeping his balance by pushing his hands against the bottom of the platform that he could now reach. Then, he carefully moved the tyre with his feet underneath all the patches with the interesting peanut butter and was able to get to it with the least energy expenditure! When you are not the strongest, it is useful to be smart and that intelligence is the way orang-utans cansurvive high up in the trees with difficult to reach food!

We are confident with more education, continued love, care and friendship, Gagas will dovery well in the future.

Dr Willie Smits recently spent four days in HK. Rushed though it was, he was able to meet, greet, tweet…and speak!

Monday March 23

Morning: Victoria Shanghai Academy.  Meet the principals and staff. Meet the Masarang Club for a Q and A session.  Meet and greet student supporters, donors as well as teachers about to visit the Sintang and Tembak projects the following week.

Then, Masarang HK Committee Meeting. Masarang HK welcomes any new volunteers and we would be grateful for any relevant help!

Tuesday March 24

Visit to New College with Dr. Billy Hau: a committed and dedicated faculty member of HKU with whom Masarang HK is proud to work when possible.   A photographic exhibition was provided for the students of New College, which had been taken by local ESF teacher, photographer and friend, Ross Burrough. The exhibition showed some of the projects of the Masarang Foundation in Indonesia.

Willie then presented to a group from the University community, then dinner at the University whilst screening the film: Rise of the Ecowarrior to the University community. For further film details, please note: www.ecowarriorsrise.com.

We sincerely hope that some members of the HKU community visit and volunteer at some of Dr. Smits’ projects in Indonesia.  Thank you, Billy!

Thank you to Chris Durbin, at ESF, as well as Ross Burrough, at Island School, for the exhibition photographs and their continued support of Masarang Foundation.

Wednesday March 25

Morning at Kennedy School: a talk to the students, then prize giving ceremony and student exhibition viewing. Wonderful work and support from this gold medal school!

Afternoon at West Island School: a talk to members of the school community.

We are thrilled that WIS is organising a student volunteer visit to Tasikoki in 2015!

Thursday March 26

Talk to staff and students at Clearwater Bay School. Amazing fundraising and support from CWBS!

Talk for HK branch of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce. Wonderful to meet the organising team and those members who attended! We remain very grateful to Ms. Kathleen Ferrier for her wonderful support of Willie’s projects and introduction at the event, as well as the generous donation from the Moorrees family, who attended the event.

Friday morning leave for Indonesia and prepare for a 5 day visit from Susan Smith, the primary principal from the Victoria Shanghai Academy and four teachers, as well as a team from Klokhuis a very popular children’s television show in the Netherlands.

Indonesia

With an intial visit to Ragunan Zoo, in Jakarta, to see the orangutans, Willie and Adrienne then celebrated Easter and the 96^th Birthday of Ulla von Mengden.

Ulla is a life-long promoter of animal rights and actually lives in the middle of Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta! She has already lived there for half a century!

Then, flights to Sintang to enable Willie to meet the Dutch Klokhuis film crew team, who were there for a week to film Willie and the local projects, especially the SOC and the 27 orangutans.

On April 1^st, the team from the VSA primary school arrived in Sintang to visit Willie’s projects in the region, including the SOC project and the Tembak/Ensaid Panjang communities. Over the next few days they witnessed some high highs and some very low lows!

The illegal gold miners spewing mercury in the river at Sintang, as well as the ever-spreading palm oil plantations were a shocking low, but the great work being done by the SOC team and the 27 rescued orangutans at the SOC, as well as the visits to Tembak and Ensaid Panjung longhouse, and football game with the children there, were very high highlights! The team brought donations of medical supplies to the clinic from the School Science department.  These were, of course, very gratefully received. They also brought clothes, balls, balloons and books for the local children, which were received with great joy and grateful thanks.

A special thank you to those students who donated clothes, balls and books.  Additionally a very special ‘Thank you’ to the two school students who raised funds and bought enrichment equipment for the orangutans at SOC!

The Klokhuis team filmed Willie throughout the same period. The programme was shown on television in The Netherlands (7th and 8^th April) and was very well received.

Please refer to the VSA school newspaper article below from the VSA Staff team below for more details and lovely photos about their visit.

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Some of the babies at the Sintang Orangutan Centre enjoying special snacks and celebrating with (absent) friends.

They are raising their glasses (yakult!) to celebrate the Birthday ( on April 28th) of long-term orangutan supporter Dave Luxton from Hemingway’s DB, Hong Kong.

Thank you to Dave for another generous Birthday present donation!

Thank you also to Peter Crush, another long-term orangutan supporter, who  provided funds for the special snack selection, including one of their favourites, namely, durian.

 More information about the 27 orangutans at SOC coming soon.

 Please help us rescue more!

I. Masarang Action for Exhibition

Y6 Exhibition Action

For our Year 6 Exhibition, my group and I chose to research and take action on deforestation. For our action we decided that we would like to help the Masarang Foundation in some sort of way so we checked the Masarang wish list to see how we could help. We all agreed to run a stand at the Kennedy School Garage Sale selling old toys and books. In the end we collected a total of $397 but that wasn’t enough money to help Masarang so we talked to Mrs. Davies to see what else we could do. She then contacted one of the teachers from West Island School and asked him to lend us extra merchandise that they were selling at the West Island School Fare (mugs, t-shirts, wrist bands, calendars and palm sugar.) We decided to sell all of these items during our Exhibition and raised much more money.  After we added it all up it we had made around $2,000. We are still planning to sell more of these items at the Kennedy School Green Week in May. When Dr. Smits came to our school and we felt very nervous but we were also very excited. He then asked us all what we would want to be when we were older and asked us if we would one day want to come and help him at the Sintang rescue centre. We all said that we had no ideas whatsoever of what we wanted to be but that it would be great to volunteer at one of the rescue centres.

II. Anti Palm Oil Action

We were passionate about the Palm Oil Industry issue because it was bothering us a lot because everyday we see people eating and buying Palm Oil. We were also passionate about this issue because the Palm Oil industry is not only destroying the forest but also destroying the Orangutans habitat so they end up dying. We should protect the Orangutan because they are special to humans because they share 96.4% the same DNA as humans and they should have a home too. For our research we found shocking and amazing facts about the Palm Oil industry and Orangutans. For our action, we decided to collect items for Tasikoki wildlife rescue centre’s wishlist because the Tasikoki wildlife rescue centre not only helps the Orangutans but other animals that are endangered. “Meeting Dr. Willie Smits for the first time was a dream come true because we have been trying to help the Masarang Foundation for 2 years and our dreams for working for the Masarang Foundation lies ahead of us and we strongly think that we stepped forward.

III. Masarang Bake-off Exhibition Action

Palm Sugar Action

Our action was a bake off. How it worked was people had to pay $30 to enter and they got a free bag of palm sugar. We sold the palm sugar on the octagonal on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. They then had to go and make something (cakes and cookies in particular) during the weekend and bring it back to the staff room before 9am on Monday. Our group then judged the cakes and we sold all of the cakes at a bake sale to raise money for Masarang. In total we raised over $4000.We were really excited to hear that Dr. Willie Smits was coming in on Wednesday the 25th of March to present the prizes of the bake off to the winners. he also made a speech about the Masarang foundation. He was very knowledgeable and interesting to listen to. The top three winners got an orangutan stuffed toy and a Masarang Calendar, the eight runners up got a Masarang Calendar as well.

On Thursday 26th March Clearwater Bay School was thrilled that Dr Willie Smits and Adrienne Watson were able to find time in their busy schedule to visit. We have held a couple of fundraising events this year so far this year, and were very happy to be able to present a cheque to Masarang for $35,162.70.

The Eco-Warriors were very excited to meet privately with Dr Smits before he gave a talks to four of our year groups in the afternoon. It was fantastic to hear about all the great work that is being done to try and reduce deforestation, help the local people and protect wildlife.

On Monday March 24th, Dr. Willie Smits, the founder of Masarang, and Ms. Adrienne Watson, the President of Masarang HK, visited school and met up with students. Dr. Smits was in Hong Kong as he had been invited to talk to Hong Kong University students later on that week.

On March 31st Mrs. Smith and four of our teachers, Mr. Davidson, Mr. Clark, Ms. Gore and Ms. Levkovich, left Hong Kong for Sintang in the vast province of West-Kalimantan in Indonesia to meet up with Dr. Smits. There, they got to witness the lives of most traditional population, the Dayaks, whose way of life is being threatened by deforestation led by palm oil plantations.

The objective of this trip was, in one hand, to further integrate Masarang and environmental concerns within the curriculum and secondly, to identify how the money recently raised could be best used.

In preparation for Ocean Week, we were lucky enough to have Adrienne Watson from Masarang Hong Kong come and talk to the children about how ocean pollution is impacting sea life and has long term effects on the environment.

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A team from Maximal Concepts, including ex-Island School Student, Malcolm Wood, worked with Chris Lord and the students from the Food Technology Department at Island School to raise funds to support the work of Masarang HK.

The team from Maximal Concepts and Island School worked together in a Fry-Together, to prepare some very special burgers for the Island School Community. More than 170 burgers were prepared, cooked and sold in school.

The students had been trained how to prepare the fillings and cook the burgers so on the day of the sale, it was all about teamwork and mass production. With support from teacher, Mr. Chris Lord and the Maximal Concepts team, the 18 students involved were split into two: a team for the playground and a team in the classroom. The classroom team had a to cook two thirds of the buns and had a really good production line going, whilst the playground team cooked the rest on the outdoor grill and sold all the burgers.

It was a very hectic lunch hour as 172 burgers were sold, raising $6500 for the Masarang HK charity. Even though there were a couple of unforeseen hiccups, everyone really pulled together to ensure this was a major success. Additionally, it gave pupils a really valuable experience into the catering industry.

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