Time is not a line

Time is not a line. We like to think of it so. Time is not so clean. Time is the space between two points, the two points of our choosing.

I chose twenty years ago as one point, and chose now, February 8^th, 2012, as another. There is no line passing between, no continuum. In that space time has accelerated beyond my, or the world’s, imagining. What seems so acceptable today wasn’t even a dream then—digital alchemy has occurred: cell phones, SD cards, digital imagery, laptops, iPads, terabytes of invisible memory replacing rolls of realness.

As Malaysia Airline flight 2640 began its descent over the South China Sea into the northeast coastal Bornean city of Kota Kinabalu I could feel that space, I could feel the difference. Oddly I was sitting in perhaps the one place that has changed the least in that space of 20 years—in a jet airliner, ten plus thousand feet above the world—that part of this journey was much the same.

At this time last year I was also airborne, but only a few hundred feet up, above the Gulf Coast of the United States. It was there one afternoon, filming the eroding bayou coastline of Louisiana at the mouth of the Atchafalaya River that I decided to do this, return to exploring apes, begin again the Great Ape Diaries. Like I said, time is not so clean, I have no idea why then, what triggered a decision.

On that afternoon my thoughts drifted to Gombe and chimpanzees and Jane Goodall. I never thought about re-starting here, in Borneo.

Curiously, it’s Jane’s words that ring in my ears tonight in this room overlooking a city that in no way resembles the Kota Kinabalu I arrived in two decades ago; it too has chosen points and moved through space. Jane once said to me, focus on mountain gorillas because they may not survive the next decade. At the time mountain gorillas had no human crusader, Dian Fossey had been murdered and the previous few years had seen the research station at Karisoke kept on life support by the diligence of Rwandan tracker and anti-poaching patrols, but there seemed no guiding figure, African or Western, that was stepping up to take the reigns. Mountain gorilla numbers were barely over a couple hundred and their days appeared numbered as well.

‘Focus on mountain gorillas because they may not survive the next decade’ – now, twenty years later it seems orang-utans are on the razor’s edge. So perhaps its Jane’s words again that guide the rebirth of Great Ape Diaries – focus on orang-utans because they may not survive the next decade.

Across the endless night of the Pacific Ocean last night I began reading Our vanishing relative: The status of wild orang-utans at the close of the twentieth century by authors Rijksen and Meijaard.  After months of pouring over papers on orang-utan conservation and constantly witnessing their work cited, I took the plunge, paid my $200 for a copy of this work. There is nothing adventurous and expeditionary about it. It is enlightening, dense, saturating and sobering. Over the past decades most writing on orang-utans has been sentimental, focused on confiscated ape orphans and personal journeys. Our vanishing relative is concentrated, caring, and concerned, but it is sentinel not sentimental.

From their Apeology forward the authors conclude:

Finally, on behalf of our supposedly sapient species, we should apologise to our wild relative, the orang-utan, not only for the ultimately lethal conditions our fellow humans are imposing upon it, but also because it has taken so long to initiate any action and obtain any realistic overview concerning its ongoing, human induced suffering: Kami minta maaf sebesar-besarnya.

From one Hominid to another, my apology as well, I hope I haven’t caused undo harm in waiting so long to return to telling your story.

 *****

Now to bed. It’s been nearly 34 hours since I left home in Portland, still a long way after twenty years, digital wizardry has done nothing to hasten the travel time, and tomorrow is a six-hour drive over the shoulder of Mt. Kinabalu to Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Center.

Staring out the hotel window the lights of Kota Kinabalu twinkle beautifully in the humid night. Orang-utans, all apes, seem far removed from here. A couple hours ago the wheels of the B777 screeched down and I could feel my heart race – in part from excitement, and equal part apprehension. I’m excited to be working again in the tropics, on such a pivotal global issue, with a chance to say something of meaning and value. I’m also frightened of the truth I will find here and over the coming months, and the fear that it might one day make me not want to look any more.