Yogyakarta, Indonesia December 1st , 2012
Background
In October 2012 Her Royal Highness Gusti Kanjen Ratu Pembayun, together with Masarang Indonesia and Masarang HK, visited the Garuda Indonesia office in Hong Kong. HRH had already set up a cooperation between Garuda Japan and Yogyakarta for a one passenger one tree program. The meeting with Mr. Rizal Perdama Kusuma led to setting up an intensive cooperation between Masarang HK and Garuda Hong Kong and is in the process of being followed up by a formal overall MoU between Masarang Indonesia and Garuda Indonesia head office.
On December 1st, 2012, we held a tree planting ceremony with Princess Gusti Pembayun in Yogyakarta where Dr. Willie Smits and Harry Kaunang of Masarang Indonesia presented lectures and training and brought 1.000 seedlings of high producing sugar palms for the valley of the Bedog river. The training, ceremonies and the special art festival in the evening all took place in the Banjuraden region, specifically in the Keradenan traditional village along the Bedog river.
The morning session, with lectures by Willie Smits and Harry Kaunang, was attended by many farmers, the Bupati Mr. Sri Purnomo and many of his government staff. They were all very enthusiastic about the sugar palm. Mr. Wiroto, the artistic leader of the art center along the river where the ceremony took place and the organizer of the festival spoke about the earlier tree planting they had done in the previous year with the Princess where one hundred different trees had been planted along the river banks. All of them died, even the ones planted personally by the princess that had been given special care of. But the three sugar palms they had received from the Yogyakarta Animal Rescue Center had all survived…
There were already some wild sugar palms growing along the embankment of the Bedog river that have been growing very well. The local people had, especially for this ceremony, put flags around the stems of the sugar palms, very much the way they do around the roots of certain fig trees that are considered the homes to spirits. There are indeed many magical stories all over Indonesia relating to the special beliefs and the high values local people address to the sugar palms.
After the morning lectures a special ceremony was held in which the seedlings were blessed in a traditional way. Mr. Wiroto, together with some very respected dancers that had come for the event, did an improvised dance where the spirits guided the dancers. It was very beautiful and the many attending farmers and the special royal army of the Sultan all were completely absorbed by the event. Unfortunately for Mr. Wiroto he had a camera and a cell phone in his pockets when the spirits told him to enter the Bedog spring, which meant the end of thse devices. Still, completely unfazed, Mr. Wiroto finished the inspired dance!
An interesting incident occurred when I took some fruits from a wild fig tree, ate them and found the people completely stunned because they had always believed that tree to be poisonous! After I assured them it was not they all started eating the ‘new’ fruit! The local elders explained the dance to me. It consisted of praising the sugar palms and praying so that they would grow well and bring many benefits to the local people. The presence of the traditional army of the Sultan was to show that these palms received royal protection!
In the evening a huge event was held with thousands of people attending. The Princess spoke and Dr. Willie Smits was also asked to address the crowd while the banners for the sugar palms with the Garuda and Masarang logo were waving in the evening wind. The whole surroundings with the light from thousands of oil lamp created an atmosphere reminiscent of a scene from the film Avatar. The day-long event was considered a great success. The Princess and Willie Smits did a special interview about the role of sugar palms for the well being of the local people. This film has also been made into a short film that will be placed on the Internet and used for other educational aims.
A photographic report
The place of the ceremony along the banks of the Bedog river. The sugar palms already growing there wild.
One of the planted sugar palms that had survived wrapped in the Indonesian flag and traditional Javanese cloth normally used for fig trees. The fruit on the stem of the tree was unknown to the local people as an edible fruit species.
Here the royal guard crosses the bridge to the planting area for the Masarang sugar palms.
The traditional gamelan prepares for the special dance for the sugar palms to be held while the dancer is getting his inspiration from the spirits from the spring underneath the platform of the gamelan players.
Blessing of the sugar palm seedlings.
The dance in the spring that led to the loss of the dancer’s camera and cell phone, about which he did not in the least seem disturbed since it was the will of the spirits!
Picture with some of the participants of the sugar palm training.
Picture of the interview with Princess Gusti Kanjen Ratu Pembayun and Dr. Willie Smits.
In the evening thousands of people attended the festival around the sugar palms and art. Some rather contemporary and creative dances with “Javanese Hip Hop”
Dr. Willie Smits going up to the podium to address the many guests.
Thousands of oil lamps created a mystical atmosphere for all the attendants and together with the rushing of the spring and gamelan music the whole event became very inspiring.
Princess Gusti Pembayun addressing the guests.
All in all it was a very successful event where the environmental aspects of sugar palm planting and the traditional cultural values of the local people were beautifully integrated in this first major event of the Garuda-Masarang cooperation where thousand seedlings were distributed to the local people for protecting their riverbanks.
Dr. Willie Smits
]]>In the picture below you can see how Masarang is being received in a traditional way by the Tombulu warriors from the village of Rurukan that we helped get drinking water from new springs in our reforestation area. In this case not the elders but the youngest generation. Thanks to Masarang’s efforts to preserve their Tombulu language and make people feel proud about their culture the traditions are kept. Something though has changed! The traditional skulls on the red clothes are no longer real skulls but fake copies made from recycled plastic! By respecting the local people they have stopped hunting and eating the Macaques as bushmeat and actually now are protecting our wildlife in the Masarang forest.
Macaques were once hunted for meat and skulls for decorating warriors. Hunting has now stopped in the Masarang forest and the skulls on the warriors costumes are no longer real skulls, but made from plastic as shown in the picture. Younger generations were encouraged to participate in Tombulu traditions and the language is taught in the village as well. Forest restoration in the area benefits the livelihood of the villagers via farming, clean water and sustainable timbers. It is important to balance nature and cultural traditions and to share successes so they can be passed on to future generations.
]]>Computer games: Orangutan enrichment and a possibility for communication between species
Computer games for orangutans project, Touch, has now been running for a little bit more than a year at the School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. This past month has seen some of the biggest developments so far particularly in terms of introducing the used custom-made touch screen technology to captive orangutans. Namely, I spent almost three weeks in Indonesia introducing a recently built playroom at Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre to the centre’s permanent residents, Bornean orangutan teenagers, Is and Bento. During the trip I also discussed new partnerships and had the great pleasure to visit Jogja Orangutan Centre in Yogyakarta.
While the aim of the Touch project is both to provide orangutans with enrichment and to offer possibilities for cross-species communication through gameplay, the current focus is in establishing a knowledge on what kind of games orangutans like playing and what kind of daily routines, social relationships and interests shape their play practices. This is not to assume that the whole species of Bornean orangutans would enjoy same features and aspects of gameplay, but it is necessary to know the basics of what kind of things they react to when represented on a touch screen and how they comfortably utilise such screen with their hands that, albeit similar to ours, often engage in very different practices.
And the entire trip went very well! Bento, the older orangutan, was more receptive to the idea of entering a room much smaller than their usual living environment and, after two weeks, had learned to use the screen quite nicely. Is, meanwhile, seems to take more time to feel comfortable in the playroom, but spent long periods of time in front of the screen when I last saw his play through Skype some days ago.
As one can imagine, there were moments of almost desperate frustration as well as pure joy during this unusual exercise of user research. Regarding the former, it took me some time to accept that various roof materials might appear more fascinating for the orangutans than the screen itself. But the occasions when I was offered bananas or a sack to cover my head with during the rain were priceless. I feel that I made friends for life!
This project and the two individual players keep amazing me day after day. As a topic animal gameplay is so vast that there is a real need to turn it into something that a whole group of researchers looks into. What I will address during my forthcoming conference presentations at the Crossroads Conference of Cultural Studies in Paris and Minding Animals Conference in Utrecht this summer are questions of interface design, conditions for bringing orangutans and humans to play together, and the meaning and importance of play in the lives of humans and non-human animals in general.
The work is made possible through the continuous support of Dr Willie Smits, the Masarang HK Society and the managers, animal keepers and volunteers of Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue Centre. I am very grateful to Garuda Indonesia and their most efficient Hong Kong office for their support regarding flight tickets as well as for their interest in this work that I find very important. Thanks all for this joint venture of doing wonders!
For more information and latest news of the project, see Ludus Animalis blog.
We welcome partnerships and collaborations, for inquiries please contact touchprojectinfo@gmail.com.
Dr Hanna Wirman
Project Associate
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
School of Design, M-Lab
In the lecture, the Crown Princess, head of the Yogyakarta Nature Conservation Foundation, spoke about the ongoing drive to save Indonesia’s forests and primates, in particular in Borneo. The Foundation runs a large animal rescue and environmental education centre near Yogyakarta. The Princess’s work has a particular emphasis on educating youth about the environment, especially though the DeforestAction, a charity which is connecting 10 million children with efforts to save Borneo’s forests and primates.
Dr. Smits, who previously lectured at the Society has been working in the Indonesian jungles for over 30 years, especially on reforestation. Dr. Smits talked about the primates of Borneo, including orangutans, and the challenges they are facing to survive in a shrinking and fragmented forest environment. Dr. Smits also spoke about the issues of saving the forests themselves, to conserve entire ecosystems.
The Foundation runs a large animal rescue and environmental education center near Yogyakarta. The center is planning the construction of the orangudome, the world’s most advanced facility for study of orangutan behavior for those orangutans that cannot be returned to the wild. The center will feature many innovative designs that provide visitors a non intrusive view of the orangutan live in the giant open dome where orangutans are provided with choices to decide where to go with what other orangutans and to interact through games that enrich their lives with people around the world.
The orangudome is part of the DeforestAction project to connect 10 million children with on the ground work for saving Borneo’s forests and the orangutans using 21st century learning skills and techniques. Dr. Smits also addressed sustainability issues in relation to the indigenous Dayak people who inhabit most of Borneo, who are also dependent on the forests. He spoke of the issues of forest ecology and forest restoration. This includes not just how to make forests into sustainable sun energy capture devices, but also how approaches, involving mixed sugar palm forests and agroforestry, might be a solution to dealing with climate change.
The following day Dr. Smits visited the orangutans in the HK Zoological and Botanic Gardens. See the interview he gave with the South China Morning Post
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/35422761 w=400&h=225]