School kids at S.K. Mujong (Primary) School on Rajang River Sarawak, Borneo

In 2001 I started a childrens’ education not-for-profit called GLOBIO, our goal was to engage kids in the world around them. After several years in East Africa working on orphaned baby African elephants it became crystal clear you can’t save what you don’t know exists. I had seen 4th and 5th grade children from downtown Nairobi who had never seen a live elephant – their national symbol!

Today I visited a primary school on the upper Rajang River, despite being on a river 70 miles into the interior of Sarawak (Malaysia) Borneo – far less removed from the world than you would ever imagine. They had internet (sometimes) television (sometimes) and cell phone coverage, DVD players, CDs, etc.  What they didn’t have was a single book in their library about the nature that surrounded them in their native Iban language or in English (which is what all their studies were in) or any other language.

It drove home the issue I have had for years - Can’t Save What You Don’t Know Exists.

On the river just down the bank from their school rafts and barges of rainforest logs where exiting down river – THEIR forests are disappearing before their eyes literally and they aren’t being taught their value.

They can’t save what they don’t know exists. Or is that the point?

With hands full of yams there is still time to be a mom - especially during a rare quiet moment on Platform "A" - a tender moment shared between mother and year and a half old infant.

A week in Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Center (SOURC) wasn’t meant for orang-utan photography, hopefully that will come when we are back here in July, but a quiet moment on the feeding Platform “A” does present opportunities one just can’t pass up. Minutes later the tranquility was shattered by marauding pigtail macaques.

Drove back over Mt Kinabalu yesterday into Kota Kinabalu, concluding the first official field week of the Great Ape Diaries. One of the more interesting/emotional/thought-consumed first weeks of any project in my 30-year career. Driving along (on the left-hand side) a flood of impressions flew by with each kilometer of the 300 kilometers; more than once reminding me how far I, and this project, still have to travel.

Last week Skye wrote a blog posting called [K]no[w] Fear – it was great to read his words. One of the great joys of this project is expanding my friendship with Skye and the others of the growing team required to make this project work. It is getting to know more deeply the other people with whom you share your passion.  With Skye, it’s the craft of telling an important story through our chosen medium. For folks like Jon and Rob at Pro Photo Supply it is turning this interest we have in the tools or hardware—cameras and lenses—into tools that help tell that story. With Lauren it’s taking that story to an audience. In each case however it is a chance to know these people on another level, more deeply, and share success.

A couple days after Skye posted his [K]no[w] Fear blog he and I had a skype call and talked about many of the same topics and expanded on others.  I had just returned from an hour-long meeting with the Director of Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Center (SOURC) Sylvia Alsistro. I was excited. I was also relieved. After days of being in Sepilok and trusting my experience and instincts about the project process, that things must evolve at their own pace, it was heartening to meet, actually re-meet as it turned out, Dir. Alsistro (during our meeting we discovered we had met nearly twenty years ago when I first came to a fledgling SOURC) and see her excitement and enthusiasm for what we are creating and attempting to accomplish with Great Ape Diaries.

Skye and I talked about trusting our instincts; We both know in our hearts and heads this is an important valuable project. We both have worked on previous projects, especially in non-Western locales, where the pace, the protocol, the politics, the culture is different than that we have grown up in the US with. We have both been successful and frustrated. I know we both look back and in hindsight ask more of ourselves. We keep learning and we know fear.

After our skype call I realized how incredibly fortunate to have Skye as a partner on this journey.

Instincts honed through experience are not always immediate to trust. Your head and your heart get in the way. I guess once you do learn that trick—trusting—you start calling it wisdom.

Early in my career I had the great fortune to discover a book called A Tree, A Blade of Grass by the master photographer Shinzo Maeda and later I met him. When someone asked him about being a great photographer, he replied he was “just learning”, still a student, in reality he was already a master by any measure. I learned in life it’s important to keep the humble child alive.

As week one comes to a close it feels like I have taken the first small step in a long journey – perhaps the most remarkable journey of my life. A journey I look forward to as much for the things I will be learning about myself and the people around me, the friendships that will deepen and grow because I need them, their help, their kindness, their knowledge and support to succeed, as any thing I will discover about my cousin Hominids. I don’t think I can ask more living from one week.

Crowds at the Sepilok Orang-Utan Rehabilitation Center, Sabah Borneo thrilled as a "moment of my life" says one visitor. How much more would each of these folks pay to ensure orang-utans had a safe place in the wild in the future? How much would you pay? Rwanda is planning to up the price of seeing, experiencing a mountain gorilla to $750 US - should other great ape countries consider the same?

Friends Ken & Mary gave me this cap attached magnifier; the original design is for flyfishermen to see tying flies. The unit is 3x power and hinged so it flips up out of the way most of the time, but always there when you need it.

After a short bit of adjusting to having it just up in the edge of my vision it has become a critical working tool I would have a hard time without.  I tried glasses, but especially here in the tropics they are a total pain in the arse – in and out of my pocket, constantly fogging. The beauty of the cap attached magnifier is it is always there and stays at the ambient temperature and humidity – it never fogs up which in the tropics is critical.

The beauty of the cap attached magnifier is it is always there and stays at the ambient temperature and humidity - it never fogs up which in the tropics is critical.

Here is a new model with a light I am looking at – from LL Bean.  The light could be valuable for a lot of other situations.

For the next half hour rain poured as if the tropical night was dead set on emptying itself. I looked at my iPhone, it was 1:50AM, it had been rain non-stop since 6PM.

Laying there my thoughts turned to orang-utans. At first it was the three females and their tiny charges who visited the feeding platform at 3PM yesterday – when the rain began, poured, then caught its breath briefly before six. There watching them  were people determined to see orang-utans – they had come so far, this once in a life-time chance – standing in a tropical downpour, as the red Hominids finally sought shelter leaving their pale cousins to stare.

Then my thoughts drifted into the night, to some night-nest four-stories into the canopy; a couple dozen freshly broken leaf-strewn branches thatched together in the fork of a tropical hardwood—not much comfort in this deluge.

I imaged one of those mother orangs I saw, one in particular, with a infant a bit over a year, remained in my memory because of a damaged right eye. What a hellava night she and that tiny baby must be having. This was not a great night to be an orang.

Mother and infant in drier times

I thought about telling her story, filming it. How does she ride out this night? Does she just pull a large leaf over her and her baby’s head and wait for the switch to be turned off?  Does she swaddle the infant close and reassure it with her breath and heartbeat that this too shall pass and it’s but one more life-lesson in tropical forest living? Or does she have some since, a memory of nights like this past, that this rain has purpose, and climb down with baby clinging tight, and seek some refuge beneath denser forest cover?

That story I would like to tell.

It’s now 4:46AM and the rain has stop, I mean STOPPED – period.

As if the switch that had turned it on last night was finally re-discovered and flip into the off-position. The downpour kept me awake most of the night, but at least I was dry. Not a great night to be an orang.

Orang-utans aren't the only orange primates swinging their way through the tropical lowland Dipterocarp rainforest canopy of NE Borneo - red leaf monkey (Presbytis rubicunda) have their own charm, although less often seen. Photographed a small troop working their way through the treetops next door to the Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Center (SOURC) in the Rainforest Discovery Center. The rainforest is one continuous sector between the two and the latter offers the tropical trekking experience now off-limits at SOURC - for the good of the rehabbing orang-utans. Unfortunately far fewer visitors make the couple kilometer trip around the corner to the entrance of the RDC and explore what real orang-utan habitat looks and feels like - including the two-hour rainstorm we took shelter from just after this photo.

Ever see that “No Fear” logo that belongs to a clothing company (at least I think it’s a clothing company…)?  The first time I saw it I remember thinking, “that’s wrong, it ought to read ‘Know Fear.’”

[Time-warp].

Many years ago, I shot a project documenting villagers in SE Asia as they straddled bombs and attempted to cut them open with hacksaws.  And though I freely admit that I used lipstick cameras as much as possible, the reality was that there was only one way to get the most accurate and telling shot – and that was simply to muscle in there and get it.  So, I’d take a deep breath, pop the camera off the tripod (carefully positioned behind one of the only trees within shooting distance of the bomb) walk over to the men and start shooting.  Once the camera was on my shoulder the work took over – questions of how to best capture the image of two men straddling a 250 lb. bomb with hacksaws in their hands and cigarettes dangling from their mouths arose.  Composition, angles, narrative and subject dynamics became central and fear slipped into the background of my consciousness.  It was almost as if the act of beginning forced my mind to shove the fear into a manageable place, a little compartment out of the way in the back of my skull.  The knowledge of the danger I was putting myself in didn’t recede, it simply “got put away’ while the work itself was being done.

Many times since then, at screenings, after broadcasts of the resulting film (plug here: www.Bombhunters.com) people who have watched the film have made comments like: “fearless,” “without fear,” etc.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  I was full of fear, brimming with it much of the time while shooting, in fact.

If the project taught me anything (and it taught me many things actually) it is that fear is our friend.  It’s there to help us, protect us, remind us that what we are doing, where we are and what we are facing could be harmful to us – in this instance it was screaming that I could be instantaneously dismembered with the various remaining parts of my body thrown to the wind in the matter of a millisecond should one of my subjects make a mistake.  I’m glad my body and mind remind me of these things because it helps me make decisions that – in the long run – I hope will result in both good work and personal longevity.

I think to aspire to live without fear or to try to pretend that one can is foolish.  “No fear” in my mind equates to self-deception – we’re simply hardwired for it as one of our built-in tools for self-preservation.  So why not acknowledge and embrace it?

Which brings me to Great Ape Diaries and Gerry and Borneo (hmm?).  Starting something is hard; the act of beginning almost an act of faith.  And yet now the moment has arrived.  Gerry’s in the field in Borneo tackling a subject he’s deeply passionate about and committed to and about which I am just now beginning to educate myself.  It’s interesting stepping into a project with someone who has a vast reservoir of knowledge on the subject from years of field experience as I’m accustomed to being the one who has put in the time researching a topic deeply beforehand.  And though I know that one of Gerry’s own fears surrounding the project must now be very real for him in Borneo – how to reconcile his many years of working with Great Apes with the fact that it has been years since he actively engaged with them in the field – it is now time for me to face my own fear, “know” it, and simply begin.

Here I come books.  Here I come gear.  Hear I come apes.

Chimpanzees and other great apes have been used in the entertainment industry for a long time. I have seen orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas in films, television, greeting cards and various types of advertisements. When I see apes in any of these ways I am appalled because I know of the horrors that are involved in their captivity.

Jen Feuerstein, Sanctuary Director of Save the Chimps Inc. vividly describes the beginning of that tortured road, “What viewers don’t see is a chimpanzee mother slumping into unconsciousness after being drugged, and human hands pulling her screaming baby from her breast.”

According to this article Careerbuilder first used chimps in a superbowl ad in 2005 and again in 2006 before a break until 2011 and hopefully what will be the last, 2012.

The questions that come to mind: Do we have the right to manipulate, without consent, sentient and highly intelligent beings for our own amusement? What happens to them when they get too big and too strong to handle?

There are lessons to be learned from this historical fight. Dr. Steve Ross, Director of Project ChimpCARE  says ”CareerBuilder.com’s commercial that shows the chimps outsmarting a human co-worker actually poses a risk to chimpanzees because people lose sight of the fact they’re an endangered species and are less likely to try to save them.” This is extremely worrying.

I remember a time when I thought seeing apes dressed up was cute and funny. I loved the chance to see any primates and there must be children today thinking the same thing. So, what changed for me? My interest in great apes led me to study anthropology, volunteer with an orangutan rescue charity and now coordinate Great Apes 4 Kids. In summary, I was educated.

The efforts of Great Apes 4 Kids will ensure that more people learn the reality of chimpanzees in entertainment and in the wild. Then they can make their own decisions about what is the right way to treat an animal with whom we share a common ancestor, and what is not.

Why?

Ultimately all the other journalistic “W”s point to Why. Add the others up and you define details, you illuminate pattern, you clarify cause, but in the beginning as well as the end you have to ask why?

The drive from Kota Kinabalu on Borneo’s northeast coast over the southern shoulder of Mount Kinabalu descending into the lowlands eastward towards Sandakan is a bit less than 300kms, but the single strand of broken pavement took just over seven hours to negotiate. And it truly is a negotiation not a drive.

Granted the road is infinitely better than most, and far exceeds western expectations, but it is mined with potholes and broken pavement, and on the first quarter of the journey the gradient seldom dips below 9-10%; horribly slow slogging if you get got behind a huge lorry – and you will.

At gastropod speed the mind has time to wander, sometimes the perambulations are near, sometimes far, sometimes back in time.

Yesterday I kept trying to remember Borneo, at least the “Land Before the Wind” of 16 years ago, when I was last here.

It was over Kinabalu’s shoulder that things became fuzzy, the memory failed and I kept asking why?

Not quite half-way to Sandakan you past through a valley lush and purely tropical, and the growing city of Ranau. It feels like one of those places you could live. The kind of place where you could eat fruit most days, the temperature would be calm and gentle, and you could raise a family – I imagined orang-utans once did.

The next town on the route east is Beluran. By the time you reach this tropical truckstop the landscape has changed, gone is the lushness, despite being an endless sea of dark rich green.  The temperature is hotter less tropical warm, less humid, but still enough to inspire vegetation to chaotically invade every nook and cranny.

Why?

The endless undulating landscape of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) on road to Sepilok, Sabah Borneo.

Gone is the forest and in its place the flagging fronds of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis). Legions of them. On their own brilliant bits of green evolution. But here in the masses they create a deep green of silence that looks and feels more viral, more mechanical than living.

This sea of palm spreads over an undulating landscape as far as the eye can see, soon further than one can imagine. For over an hour we drove along a narrow strip of grey through a endless world of dark green palm. On occasion a side road of dusty red would produce a huge truck laden with the knobby fruits of the palm.

But in its own way no different than the endless cornfields of the American Midwest, of Douglas fir replants of western US and Canada, wheat fields of western US or sugarcane of Australia. Each on their own a marvelous piece of plant life. In our engineered masses they convolute the landscape into a sim-crop alien and leached of biodiversity.

Why?

Understanding maybe starts with baby 7 billion born a few months ago?

At the end of seven hours of driving at last the round-about leading into Sepilok.  The road leads through one last oil palm grove – the irony isn’t lost. Tomorrow the orang-utan center, more remembering and assembling pieces. But for now just “why?”