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| Rare Blog: Adventures in Conservation |
Great news! During our inspiring trip to Yunnan Province, China late last year, several of us decided to chip in and help finance the reconstruction of the Tibetan Cultural Center in Yongzhi village. Thanks to Rare trustee Ruth Yeoh, Kenneth Khaw Jin Teck, Jin Ligang and Shen Lei, we succeed in raising $3500 just before the holidays. Here’s a video “thank you note” from Mr. Ma, Rare’s Senior Advisor in Yunnan.
Mark Erdmann, Senior Advisor to Conservation International Indonesia’s marine program, speaks to Rare CEO Brett Jenks about the importance of the Coral Triangle and how Rare’s methodology is a key factor in helping to reduce threats to this ecological resource.
Laney Thornton, a passionate conservationist and long-time Rare supporter, just returned with his family from a five-day visit to a Rare Pride campaign underway on the island of Borneo. Laney’s family witnessed first-hand both the beauty and the importance of saving this critical orangutan habitat, and learned what Rare and local partner Yayorin are doing to help this community successfully address this conservation challenge.
Laney poses with Sampson
Grrrrrrggg! is the sound that a Proboscis monkey makes. I know that because our klotok was parked for the night along this Borneo jungle river underneath a tree in which a family of Proboscis monkeys were likewise parking themselves for the night not 30 feet above us. The male monkey made that sound when its child started to wander off towards our boat. Upon hearing this ominous sound, the child monkey immediately turned on its palms and headed back up to the top to its parents.
A klotok is the name of 40-foot long Indonesian-style sightseeing boats common in Kalimantan that plow up rivers taking people into Tanjung Putting National Park. It’s in the evening that the top deck of the boat transforms from a communal dining facility into a mosquito-netted sleeping porch. At night we’ll all go to sleep to the jungle sounds of crickets, gibbons, and the late evening chatter of the Indonesian crew finishing the dishes in their quarters below.
Klotok Laney and his family took through the National Park
Laney Thornton with Togu, Executive Director of Yayorin, Rare’s partner in Lamandau River Wildlife Reserve
World-class primate viewing happens at places like Camp Leakey, where a couple dozen orangutans seem to voluntarily split their time between the camp and the jungle. Unlike viewing the huge but indifferent mountain gorillas in Rwanda, these primates seem ready to invite you into occasional enticing relationships with them.
Whether on the klotok dock of Camp Leakey where orangutans meet and greet you, or on the hiking trail where they will often hike with you as you explore the deep jungle, this trip offered a unique interaction far different than our gorilla experiences in Rwanda.
Our travel companion this morning was Sampson, a 17-year old male who joined our hike 10 minutes into the forest. He walked in line with us from the beginning of camp, as if he were a new member of our group. At a couple of points in the hike, the guides allowed us to accept Sampson’s offer to hold hands for the trip for a few moments. It was obvious from his touch that Sampson knew the strength of a human being, as he did not try to overpower me but instead allowed the lead to alternate from him to me.
Laney pictured with his son, wife, and niece
This gentle contact was very different from the grip I got a day earlier when an orangutan sprung on me to grab my coconut soda can — a grab that clearly meant to overpower me rather than engage in any kind of mutuality. While habituated to humans, these are wild animals doing what they want to do whenever they want to do it. Even though some of their activities include just hanging and chilling with humans, some also include things that most humans would not call either polite or gentle.
After an orgy of picture-taking, I found myself just able to enjoy the animals without the need to stow away yet another visual photographic record of this trip.
In the last thirty years, orangutan populations have plummeted due to massive carbon emitting deforestation on the island of Borneo. And this trip exposed the fragile nature of the forest, where former rice fields that were designated to be converted back to forest in the park simply do not grow back. Instead they remain areas of open low-lying brush constantly at risk of fire during the dry season.
Where the forests have been cleared by logging or fire, low, scrubby invasives prevent an indigenous forest from again taking hold. (Photo by Jason Houston – view slideshow of his visit to Borneo)
My family’s orangutan experience only adds poignancy to the continuing sense of loss of what is visible all around us – precious habitat for the orangutans and global warming for all of us. In any event, you can’t help a kind of “falling in love” feeling here with this orangutan community. I know we will all feel a pang of regret leaving this enchanted place and our new orangutan friends.
>>Learn about other trips offered through Rare
If you are interested in joining an upcoming trip to a Rare Pride campaign site please contact Lindsay Hower at lhower@rareconservation.org.
Jennifer Thornton Wieland, niece of Laney Thornton, a passionate conservationist and long-time Rare supporter, just returned with her family from a five-day site visit to a Rare Pride campaign underway on the island of Borneo. Jennifer’s family witnessed first-hand both the beauty and the importance of saving this critical orangutan habitat, and learned what Rare and its local partner Yayorin are doing to help this community successfully address this conservation challenge.
What a wonderful day with the orangutans! It seems like nothing can describe the experience of sharing the jungle with these beautiful, amazing primates. Our day started trekking through the forest with a group of nine excited hikers – members of my family, Nigel and Lindsay from Rare, and me. About twenty minutes into our two hour journey, we were delighted to be joined by a tenth companion, an orangutan named Sampson. Sampson, a seventeen year old son of Siswi, a very engaging and gregarious resident of Tanjung Putting National Park, was happy to have crossed our path.
Jennifer with her uncle Laney Thornton and Sampson, the hiking orangutan who joined the group on a hike.
After the usual photo opportunities and some proud orangutan posing on Sampson’s part, we continued on our way. If you have never been on a walk, in the forests of Borneo, with an incredible orangutan as part of your clan, let’s just say that I highly recommend it as an experience of a lifetime that shouldn’t be missed. The afternoon brought more incredible experiences and interactions with the magnificent orangutan.
Jennifer with Rare staff member Lindsay Hower posing with Siswi, an orangutan who greeted the Rare group on the dock of Camp Leakey, an orangutan rehabilitation center.
After Sampson left us to find his lunch, we headed back to the klotok, our wooden vessel on which we slept, ate and traveled. Careful to enjoy every opportunity to see the orangs, Togu Simorangkir (Executive Director from Yayorin) accompanied me on a trail as the others walked ahead. As we approached Siswi, we learned from some of the human residents at Camp Leaky that Tom, the dominant male orangutan of the entire troop in this area, was in a nest in a tree above. Togu, a former researcher based at Camp Leaky, had not seen Tom in over a year so this was a rare and special opportunity for both him and me. We called the others to join us. Tom sat up in his nest then came down to join us. He was quick to show off his incredibly huge orangutan body, complete with enormous orangutan cheekpads. If we had not already been told, it would have been a good educated guess that this was indeed the dominant male. Tom did not disappoint and presented us with great photo moments then sat with Siswi and shared a big bucket of milk presented to them by some friends.
Tom, the dominant male orangutan of the entire reserve’s troop, says hello to Jennifer and the Rare group.
An incredible moment in the wild, with orangutans completely free to do whatever or go wherever they pleased at any time, was happening now. How lucky I was to have been there and been a part of it. Now, sitting on the klotok, heading back to a different reality, I cannot help but know that I will forever be changed by this day, in Borneo, with my friends, the orangutans.
Jennifer “doing yoga” with Siswi on the dock before the group left the orangutan rehabilitation center.
>>Learn about other trips offered through Rare
If you are interested in joining an upcoming trip to a Rare Pride campaign site please contact Lindsay Hower at lhower@rareconservation.org.
Dale Galvin, Rare’s Chief Operating Officer, blogs about his trip to Fiji where he joined a hard-working Rare team to host a social marketing workshop for potential Pride campaign partners in the region. Follow Dale’s adventures as he and his team witness local conservation efforts to protect marine species, introduce regional conservation experts to Rare’s methodology and share how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in their communities.
After traveling for 24 hours, I finally landed in Suva, Fiji to attend a three day workshop to introduce potential partners to Rare’s Pride program and social marketing concepts. Participants came from Fiji, Western Samoa, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea and represented organizations such as SeaWeb, Coral Reef Alliance, Fiji National Trust and the University of South Pacific. Participants learned more about what Rare does and were given a sample of the topics that Rare covers in its university training program (learn more) to equip local leaders with a comprehensive toolkit for achieving lasting conservation results.
Introduction and greetings from Sunia Waqainabete, Chairman of FLMMA and Senior Research Office of the Fijian Fisheries Department.
Pride campaign manager applicant, Fremden Yanhambath of Live and Learn Environmental Education, speaks to the participants about the top threats at his site in Vanuatu.
There was a lot of healthy interaction, learning, and feedback between Rare Staff, Pride campaign applicants and conservation experts. Many of the participants seemed to enjoy learning more about social marketing and Rare’s methodology. Conversations produced solid progress in our efforts to develop a suite of Pride campaigns focused on a common conservation threat and solution for the Pride English Program, including looking at some creative ways of maximizing impact. During one threat ranking exercise it became clear that many of the threats to the LMMAs in Fiji are common in other Pacific sites as well. Some of these threats include:
Group working together during a break-out session.
Our challenge then was to identify the specific conservation outcome that a cohort of Pride campaigns might support. There are a lot of options, including:One challenge – identifying the specific conservation outcome that a cohort of Pride campaigns might support. There are a lot of options, including:One challenge – identifying the specific conservation outcome that a cohort of Pride campaigns might support. There are a lot of options, including:One challenge – identifying the specific conservation outcome that a cohort of Pride campaigns might support. There are a lot of options, including:
Another cause of debate – the size of No-Take-Zones, and the method of determining what is deemed “successful.” In the Coral Triangle, our assumption is that a minimum No-Take Zone size should be 1000 hectares. The Fiji Locally-Managed Marine Area (FLMMA) scientists think much smaller reserves can and do work. The reason may be different habitat, levels of productivity in the reef, or just a difference in opinion. There is also a challenge of increasing No-Take Zones referred to as “tabu” size when the perception is that the current size is working, and expansion would be hard to accommodate.
One participant used an interesting analogy:
“…Asking a community to self-impose a No-Take-Zone, which is a significant portion of the overall fishing grounds of the community, for the promise (but not guarantee!) of some future benefit is akin to asking the residents of Washington, DC, to vote themselves a 30% additional tax, in the hopes that some future social benefit will accrue.”
Not an easy sale!
Dale Galvin, Rare’s Chief Operating Officer, blogs about his trip to Fiji where he joined a hard-working Rare team to host a social marketing workshop for potential Pride campaign partners in the region. Follow Dale’s adventures as he and his team witness local conservation efforts to protect marine species, introduce regional conservation experts to Rare’s methodology and share how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in their communities.
I had been feeling great this whole trip; those who know me at Rare know I am a magnet for various tropical ailments but so far so good. Well that all ended when I woke up on Saturday morning, preparing to go see the Votua community with the Rare staff and some other partners as well. Suffice is to say that I thought I had the swine flu, and couldn’t swallow even a spoonful of yogurt. Meanwhile, the first step to going to see the community was to put on the appropriate attire – a bula shirt and a sulu (skirt-like thingy). The night before, after our workshop and before the shops closed (the shops conveniently close a few minutes before everyone gets off work), we rushed out to buy this local clothing and the only store still open sold only the fanciest versions of bulas and sulus, so that later others remarked that we all looked like we were “going to church.”
Adam, Dale, and Sean in traditional bulas and sulus.
On arrival to the village, we presented our gift of kava root (looks like a bundle of sticks) to the village representatives, and sat down on a straw mat for the kava ceremony. The ceremony consisted of a number of rhythmic chants and blessings, handing the kava from one person to the next. In return for the kava, the community members welcomed us to their village, and began preparing the kava. Doing that entails putting the ground kava into a porous bag, and dumping water into it so that it drains out through the bottom of the bag. Then the preparer mashes the bag, wringing out the kava-infused water with their bare hands into a bowl called a tanoa. As the highest ranking Rare “Chief” in attendance, I had to drink often from the bowl. I will share only that from what I was told the next day in that it had been a very “memorable experience”. I trust them.
Serving kava at the ceremony.
Dale holding the kava in a coconut shell bowl. Looks good!
A little more about the Votua community: This community is a good but also unusual example of other communities in Fiji. It is a Fijian Locally-Managed Marine Area (LMMA) success story. By working with the Fijian arm of LMMA (FLMMA, pronounced “flamma”), they created a managed marine area within their community-owned fishing area. Within that, they created a tabu (pronounced “tambu”) area which is a relatively permanent No-Take-Zone. I say “relatively” because they are sometimes opened to large one-off fishing extravaganzas when there is for example, a financial need or a wedding.
Votua rugby player.
All the community members agree that the tabu area has been successful, and they have some monitoring data to back that up, even though the area is close to shore and quite small in global terms (300 x 800 meters). Potentially because of this success and willingness to participate in new projects, they have been recipients of a lot of international aid, resulting in things like a fairly substantial grey and black water recycling system, homestay training for hosting visiting students and tourists, and coral plantings in the tabu area.
All and all, despite my tropical flu and a kava overdose, it was a great day. The community is exemplary in their willingness to protect their marine resources, and serves as a great example for our campaign to market to other communities who may be ready to adopt similar programs.
Coral plantings.
The Giant clam, one of several species of clam under threat in Fiji and other Pacific islands.
Votua Locally Managed Marine Protected Area.
Local conservation efforts have attracted additional international aid opportunities such as this black water recycling system (aka sewage treatment plant).
Dale Galvin, Rare’s Chief Operating Officer, blogs about his trip to Fiji where he joined a hard-working Rare team to host a social marketing workshop for potential Pride campaign partners in the region. Follow Dale’s adventures as he and his team witness local conservation efforts to protect marine species, introduce regional conservation experts to Rare’s methodology and share how the Pride campaign model can support lasting conservation impact in their communities.
Still recovering from my Fijian flu and an overdose of kava, I was actually considering bailing on the Sunday dive trip to the Beqa (pronounced Benga) Lagoon, another locally managed protected area; I’m glad I didn’t.
There, a local dive operator, Beqa Adventure Divers, runs a special “shark dive,” wherein they chum the waters to attract sharks. It’s not unusual for the dive to attract many species of shark, including the two most dangerous after great whites, bull and tiger sharks. In addition, grey reef, white tip, silver tip, and lemon sharks are common.
We did not arrange to do the shark dive, but instead planned on a standard coral reef visit. I have mixed emotions about a shark feed. On the one hand, the positives are that awareness is raised about sharks and their habitat (and the fact that they are not as dangerous as the media portrays), and in this case, significant funds from each dive (FJD$20 per diver) goes back to the community in return for the protection. The safety record, at least here in Fiji, is spotless.
However, there are downsides. Safety is one of them. Last year, a diver was killed in a shark feed in the Bahamas, when a shark mistook his leg for food. Also, the feeding habituates the sharks to feeding, disrupting their natural instincts. Sometimes sharks get disoriented and wander off from their usual habitats, following boat noise, looking for food handouts, etc. Confused sharks can threaten fishermen and local populations. Lastly, a shark feed is a contrived setting, in which you are not actually seeing the behavior of an animal in the wild. It’s more like going to the zoo.
So all that said, I was happy to do a plain old coral reef dive, but even happier when I found out we were going near the same sites they did the shark feeding, so sharks were likely to be hanging around. Conditions were perfect – flat seas, 70 feet of visibility, and 74 degree water.
White Tip shark.
Being first off the boat, I looked down through my goggles and saw huge schools of fish – giant trevally, other jacks, and groupers swarming at 30 feet I descended to 100 feet when I saw my first glimpse of a grey reef shark in the distance. I swam towards it. Soon, an enormous bull shark circled around, followed by another, then another. Sharks were everywhere, including one eight-foot pregnant bull shark.
Pregnant Bull shark.
They stayed at a cautious distance, clearly wondering if there was going to be a feeding, and not interested in getting too close to the divers otherwise. After chasing them around for a while snapping photos, I looked back for my group and couldn’t see them. I realized I had been at 120 ft for a little too long and was sucking down air like coca cola, so I headed back and ultimately found the group. We all hung out there for a little bit, watching more shark activity, and then ascended up the coral reef. Close to the surface, I saw a few white-tip reef sharks nosing around.
Giant Trevally.
Clownfish in the reef.
School of Longfin Bannerfish.
Struggling to stay down as long as possible, but with my computer telling me I was both out of air and bordering on nitrogen overload, I headed to the boat. It was a fantastic dive! One of the best dives of my life, though it was not without casualties. The first was my rare colleague Adam, who surfaced looking the same shade of green as the bumphead parrotfish. He spent the remaining 3 hours of the trip huddled seasick over the side of the boat (he wasn’t the only one, however, a number of other passengers were sick, despite a lack of waves). Two other passengers removed their gear and had blood streaming down their faces – not a shark bite however but just some imploded sinuses. They were so happy about the dive they didn’t seem bothered. Adam was valiant and an hour after the dive was eating goat curry, happy as a giant clam.
Despite a few physical calamities, it was a great dive and a great day (the second was more mellow and shallow – I did see a few sharks and a turtle, and the biodiversity of the fish was really impressive). The best part (other than the bull sharks), was seeing how productive a protected reef can be, and how benefits can accrue to the local community.
According to Dale there’s a turtle on the sea bottom. Do you see it?
After nearly canceling the event several weeks earlier due to the outbreak of the H1N1 virus (swine flu) in Mexico, Rare staff and Pride campaign alumni persevered to launch the Latin America Pride Alumni Network in Guadalajara, Mexico, on July 12th. After three days of workshops, training updates and networking, the 43 conservation leaders in attendance established a solid framework for supporting each other’s on-going work and by doing so, strengthened local conservation across Latin America.
The scene at the front desk of our hotel in Guadalajara on July 12th was like a red carpet for conservation. 43 Pride campaign managers from 14 countries across Latin America were arriving to the first-ever Rare alumni gathering. Some of them knew each other, and some were meeting for the first time.
The theme of this first-ever Latin American Alumni Meeting was “Planting the Seeds of Conservation”.
View photo highlights of the Latin America Alumni Meeting!
A Critical Piece of Conservation Success
Alumni represent the true potential for the long-term success of Rare’s work. Although Alumni campaign managers don’t work for Rare, 75% of Latin America alumni have sustained their campaigns after their formal partnership with Rare has ended, 45% have run second or new campaigns, and nearly 100% are still involved in conservation.
Launching the Network
The two main objectives of this event were to design and officially launch the Latin America Pride Alumni Network and to build capacity in new Rare tools and other conservation methods. Both objectives were met during the three rigorous days of workshops, speaker panels, “World Café” roundtable discussions, small group work, free time for side meetings, and of course, like any proper Latin America gathering — dancing, mariachis, and tequila. Daily themes progressed from “Increasing Conservation Impact” to “Building Our Capacity” to “Launching the Network.”
By the end of the meeting, participants had designed a vision for their own Latin America network:To be recognized internationally for the action, generation and interchange of knowledge to achieve conservation impact, through a participatory space and for the benefit of the community and other organizations.
From this unifying vision, campaign managers created five key objectives to reach this vision, organized by five committees that produced specific action items and work plans:
Rare Alumni Manager Sharon Price explained the implications of the objectives set in Guadalajara. “What this means for the alumni program is that we’ve set a precedent that all the work we do with our campaign managers is co-owned, co-developed and based on their direct needs. We asked alumni what they needed to maintain conservation impact in their current work and how forming an alumni network can help them to achieve these goals. Now that they’ve told us and drafted an action plan, we have a lot of work to do together to see the vision materialized.”
Yesterday’s work at the Inaugural Rare Pride Latin America gathering brought the first brainstorming sessions to establish a vision for this burgeoning network. We also had sessions on the use of mobile phone technology for constituency-building, conflict resolution training, monitoring and evaluation skill building, and of course a jam-packed session on Miradi (www.miradi.org) – no surprise given the number of campaign managers years ago who were trained before this software was developed.
Some of the objectives under consideration for the Latin America alumni network and RarePlanet.org include: dynamic interchange of experiences by local leaders changing community social norms; a platform for securing funding and volunteers; a network of practitioners changing the practice of conservation; a source of mutual support and camaraderie (the Spanish word “companerismo” is tough to beat); resources for practitioners; a bank of stories that highlight challenges and inspiring success; an online translation service that ensures global sharing of good practices; and the dream that within five years even the remote, rural target communities will be able to access RarePlanet.org through mobile phone technology. Of course, a number of significant challenges were also named, but we have a couple days left to work on those.
Paul Butler, Rare’s Senior Vice President and the founder of the Rare Pride campaigns, was of course pleased as punch. Here’s a quick video made with a Flip camera.
Click here to watch interview with Paul Butler
(By the way, to which Colonel Sanders was he referring?)
Last night, after three days in hotel conference rooms, the entire group took over a local restaurant and demonstrated to Guadalajara how social change agents let off steam, especially in Latin America. Of course these skills come in handy when it’s time to mobilize communities.
July 13, 2009
What a treat! 40 Latin American alumni of Rare’s Pride program are gathered together in Guadalajara, Mexico this week to share stories, reflect on their past experiences, and explore possibilities for launching an alumni network. I plan on attending two full days of their retreat in order to see what I can learn from them, and to get a sense for myself of the benefits of investing in an alumni organization.
I am not sure I have much with which to compare this program. My MBA program at Georgetown holds a number of alumni events. Some are purely social. They are basically cocktail parties. Some are slightly more business-oriented, such as networking fairs. Others offer educational opportunities, guest speakers, seminars, even trips. For the most part, the Georgetown grads are on the receiving end of free alcohol, networking opportunities, and the occasional lecture series. The alumni don’t produce new knowledge, they don’t often share their own stories except interpersonally, and there is no organized way for us to work together to advance our individual or collective work. But then again, I doubt many graduates even have these expectations. For the university, I’m sure the ultimate measure of success for alumni relations is fundraising. They’re good at this. In fact, Georgetown just opened a state-of-the-art business school that was paid for with alumni funds.
Rare’s idea of an alumni gathering is a little different. Let’s start with the goal. We simply want to offer an opportunity to Rare’s past partners to reconnect, gain some additional training, share stories, and if they so desire redefine their partnership with Rare. While I haven’t yet had a chance to ask them personally, my guess is that many Pride alumni want help running additional campaigns, or they want additional training. Some will want help identifying funding sources to pay for ongoing behavior change efforts; others want to simply hear what’s going on with other campaigns in the region.
I have my own interests of course. I’d like to see these local conservation leaders collaborating throughout the region to achieve a host of new objectives, for example: building greater demand for social change models within the environmental community, perhaps by helping organizations recognize that human behavior is the root cause of environmental challenges; creating a virtual community of social marketing practices; mentoring newly trained campaign managers or at least following their campaigns and encouraging them along; helping Rare track campaign impacts much longer than the 1-2 year timeframes we’ve grown accustomed to; helping us recruit new sites and new partners as we expand over time; and challenging and supporting us as we try to develop a platform for all this collaboration.
But let’s see what they have to say….
July 14, 2009
Day One – though I spent it on airplanes getting here – was apparently quite good. If the photo sessions before dinner were any indication, this looks a lot like a Latin America reunion. It’s a pretty animated group. Sharon Price, who worked with a team to organize this event, had this to say about day one.
…Too bad I missed the yoga.
A couple of interesting tidbits I’ll follow up on today:
Elizabeth Cabrera from Paraguay is now launching her THIRD Pride campaign. No Rare funding, no ongoing support, but she’s won an Overbrook Fellowship, started a Master’s in Sustainable Development at National University, and she’s launching a third campaign. Not bad for a young woman who only graduated college in 2002. Here’s a quick interview with her on day one:
Hear Elizabeth as she explains (in Spanish and Guarani, her native language in Paraguay), how exciting it is to be in this reunion and closes with, “I love the Rare family and feel like part of it.”
Stay tuned for more highlights!
