I haven’t blogged for over a month, but goodness knows, I have tried. Being in the field all this time in Kalimantan made it virtually impossible to have internet connections. Putative swine flu felled three of the volunteers on the first OFI team at the end of July and they were quarantined for 10 days by the Indonesian health department. This brought on its own problems, problems we had never encountered before. Everyone emerged from the experience healthier than ever and swine flu was never actually proved.
There were also visitors galore, many most welcome and a pleasure to see but still it kept me hopping. And, of course, the orangutans! They keep us busy nonstop, night and day, it seems.
I am now in Jakarta and will attempt to blog again. Please forgive me but the forests of Indonesian Borneo, where I do my work, seem to be more accessible by palm oil concessionaires, fires, and illegal loggers than by internet.
Scientist, conservationist, educator: for almost four decades Dr. Biruté Mary Galdikas has studied and worked closely with the orangutans of Indonesian Borneo in their natural habitat, and is today the world’s foremost authority on the orangutan.
August 18th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Enjoying your blog! I continue to hope that a business will step forward with a donation for the wonderful orangutans. Your closing paragraph is so sadly true. I do remember that Camp Leakey remains the one place on Earth we’ve found so far where the cell phone did not work. I continue to be amazed at the number of products that promote themselves as “natural,” “nature,” “diet,” – all of those good buzz words to catch the consumers’ eyes – and yet there’s that ingredient of palm oil.
November 19th, 2009 at 12:32 am
hi i was wondering who is your favorite orangutan you ever met
November 19th, 2009 at 12:37 am
hi,
what is your email adress?
I wanted to ask some questions for my school women in science project.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Maddie, I noticed the recent date on your inquiry, and in case Dr. Galdikas is not online to reply, and since I know how short the deadline can be in academic situations, why not browse http://www.orangutan.org which I listed above. It is not my website; that is the website of Dr. Galdikas’s foundation – Orangutan Foundation International. Then if you need a bibliography for your science project, I can tell you that there is lots of information (and an interesting story) in Dr. Galdikas’s book, REFLECTIONS OF EDEN- My Years with the Orangutans of Borneo.
The first chapter is about Akmad, a wonderful orangutan that is still alive today! She lives in the rain forest of Tanjung Puting National Park and still has babies. On the official OFI website, there is a picture of the cover of National Geographic magazine from October 1975. The little orangutan walking in front of Dr. Galdikas is Akmad. This could be fun information for your report.
Rebecca Reeder
(a member of OFI)