EARTH DAY 2024: PLANET VS PLASTICS
Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day to honour the planet that is home to us all.
We would like to introduce another orangutan warrior from our BOSF-RHO (Orangutan Habitat Restoration) program in East Kalimantan, who joined the BOS Foundation four years ago.
Indar Yaumy, who was born in Bogor, was initially employed to aid PRM (Post-Release Monitoring) efforts through her role in data management. Her main tasks involved making the preparations to support both orangutan release activities in the Kehje Sewen Forest and orangutan transfers to the Juq Kehje Swen pre-release island. Indar was later promoted and given the greater responsibility of analyzing our PRM reports and planning community empowerment activities in our three target villages in the Muara Wahau District, East Kutai Regency: Bea Nehas, Diaq Lay, and Dea Beq.
In 2020, Indar took the position of Forest Planning and Project Officer, and was tasked with creating a Kehje Sewen Forest management plan within the ecosystem restoration scheme. In this role, Indar plans activities that would benefit the forest, orangutans, and community, and carry them out in collaboration with other stakeholders. Then, this year, she was made Acting Deputy Manager for the Kehje Sewen Forest and Juq Kehje Swen Island, and now oversees all activities carried out in the Kehje Sewen Forest and on Juq Kehje Swen Island.
Read also: ORANGUTAN WARRIOR #5 - HANDY MAS SURIP
Indar says that her most memorable experience with orangutans occurred during her first orangutan release. Things had not gone as planned and she had to retreat as two male orangutans were heading in her direction. «I did not have time to process what was going on, I just moved quickly,» she recalls. «Now I know better; to always prepare an evacuation route.»
No matter how tough the challenges, Indar says that working with orangutans has been her dream since she was a child. She says she has always been deeply fascinated by conservation, and that the orangutan was always the species that intrigued her the most.
Through her hard work, Indar hopes to see an increase in wild orangutan populations in the future. «I want to see more orangutans living freely in the forest, thus helping to keep Kalimantan one of the lungs of the world. I also hope the government will provide greater support for conservation, and to see – and take part in – an improvement in the management of Indonesia’s forests.»
Indar encourages people to remain steadfast, especially in the field of conservation. «Do the best you can to conserve forests and orangutans. While it might be a long and arduous process, even the tiniest of actions can create real change for the future, like correctly disposing of litter and cigarette butts, and not burning the land irresponsibly,» Indar says.
Like Indar, let’s always hope for a better future!
Every year on April 22, we celebrate Earth Day to honour the planet that is home to us all.
It was a usual day at the Nyaru Menteng forest school, where young orangutans were learning from one another while their human surrogate mothers looked on from below.
Our Post-Release Monitoring (PRM) team at Camp Himba Pambelum in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park (TNBBBR), Central Kalimantan, encountered Suci, a young female orangutan, three times back in 2023.
