The river is our road through the rainforest.  Long, slow klotok^* rides at dawn and dusk.  Solemn proboscis monkeys waiting in the trees.  On the second day, we encounter an orangutan.  Waving branches at first, then gradually coming closer.  Baby clinging to her side.  Silence. The orangutan regards us.  I put down my camera and binoculars and drink her in deeply through misty eyes.  My heart is crying:  “God, what can I do to keep her world pure and free?”

Step back for a moment.  Look at the boat driver, the tour group, the orangutan and her offspring.  Now pan out over the river, the camp, and the forest.  See the orangutans, the monkeys, the wild Bornean pigs, and the clouded leopard.  Every living plant and every living being is here today because of the actions of one woman:  Dr. Birute Galdikas.

She came here 38 years ago to follow and study orangutans in the wild.  By anyone’s standards, she was amazingly brave.  Living in a bark-walled hut in the midst of the jungle accompanied by orphan orangutans who clung to her side and bit anyone who tried to remove them.  Tracking wild orangutans for days at a time, scrambling through crocodile-infested swamps as her subjects swung through the trees.  Suffering from every conceivable tropical ailment, from malaria-induced fevers to a paralyzed, claw-like hand, to weeping jungle ulcers that took months to heal.

My companions on the tour had read her account of those early years, called Reflections of Eden.  Everyone wanted to know how she had the guts to fend off flying snakes, blood-sucking leeches, and charging 300-pound male orangutans.  Her response was modest:  She said that she was too young to know any better.

Dr. Galdikas was brave to face those dangers, and undergo those hardships.  But there is a different kind of bravery born of right-thinking and personal responsibility that must endure the test of years.  This is the courage required to stand in the path of destruction, facing down the poaching, logging, mining, and palm oil industries and to say:  “Here you will not tread.”  Therefore, I asked Dr. Galdikas:  “How have you kept fighting when all around you the rainforest is being destroyed?”  And she replied:  “Because I have to.”

^* Klotok:  Traditional Indonesian long boat.

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The focal point of the trip will be the orangutan sanctuary at Camp Leakey, located inside Tanjung Puting National Park (which itself is under threat.)  I’m bringing antibiotics and syringes for the orangutans at the sanctuary.  And I’m bringing a laptop for Dr. Birute Galdikas, who has been studying the orangutans since 1971 and is now fighting to save them.

May I bear witness for these denizens of the rainforest upon my return.

Till now, this has been my only encounter with primates.  On a road to a shrine in India in ‘87.

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My life with the shadow was divided into two parts.  In my normal life, I continued running my business and taking care of my rescue pug, Tristin.  In my shadow life, I poured over medical research, corresponded with doctors, and reviewed all available clinical trials, trying to find a cure for my dad.

Finding a balance between my normal life and the shadow life was challenging.  Of course, nothing was more important that helping my father.  But what was the likelihood that–even if I devoted my every waking moment to keeping him alive–I could anything to save him?  Thus I alternated between guilt and despair, until his death in February 2004.

After my father died, I healed quickly.  My grief had been spread over a period of years as I faced the facts of Dad’s illness.  Reading bad news is hard.  Reading it night after night, as I went through case studies, and forums, and articles was even harder.  There is something in the human psyche that wants to turn away from bad news.  But bad news is all around us and, now that I had developed a habit of looking at it straight on, I found that I couldn’t stop seeing it.

I realized that the natural world has been invaded by a cancer like my father’s.  Our planetary ecosystems are being destroyed, including the rainforests, which are the planet’s lungs.

Indonesia is now the world’ third-largest greenhouse gas emitter.  This is because of ongoing destruction of the rainforests.  In less than 15 years 98% of Indonesia’s rainforests will be gone. The orangutans who live there, along with thousands of other species, will be extinct.  The original orangutan populations have already been reduced by 97%.  There are perhaps 55,000 orangutans left.  Of these, 5-10,000 are killed every year.

Apart from logging, fires, and other factors, oil palm plantations are the single largest cause of rainforest destruction in Indonesia.  Palm oil has become the world’s most popular oil.  Demand for palm oil is forecast to double by 2020.   To meet that demand, over 1,160 square miles of land per year will need to be converted to oil palm plantations annually.  The Indonesian government has set aside 26,300 square miles of forest land for new oil palm plantations.

Oil palm is big business.  Almost all oil palm is grown as an industrial plantation crop.  The oil palm industry is financed by the state, international private banks, and international donors such as the World Bank, Asian Development Bank,  the European Union, the United States, and Japan.  Important global corporate consumers of palm oil are Unilever, Proctor & Gamble, Cognis, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland.

“In reality it’s over for the tiger, the elephant and the orangutan,” said Mr. Smits, who founded the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. “Their entire lowland forest habitat is essentially gone already. We find orangutan burned, or their heads cut off. Hunters are paid 150,000 rupiah [$15.00] for the right hand of an orangutan to prove they’ve killed them.”

This sounds like as one-sided a contest as the battle my dad waged against is cancer.  On one side you have everyone from international agribusiness, to the Indonesian government, to shadowy Malaysian companies who control most of the oil palm projects in Indonesia.  On the other side, you have the Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, and maybe the Dutch government, if they can get their act together.  A David and Goliath match–AND–we’re almost out of time.

So this is the shadow that’s hanging over me right now.  Once again, it’s challenging to find a balance.  In my normal life, I continue running my business and taking care of my rescue pug, Otis.  In my shadow life, I try to figure out what I can do to stop the destruction of the natural world. Of course, nothing is more important that saving the planet.  But what is the likelihood that–even if I devoted my every waking moment to it–I could save even the orangutans? There are no clinical trials, no FDA-approved drugs that combat corporate greed, governmental corruption and willful human ignorance.

Nonetheless, I want to try.  On July 1st, I’m going to Indonesia to visit Dr. Birute Galdikas, founder of Orangutan Foundation International.  I’m bringing a laptop and some medications for the orangutans.  I’m hoping that, while I’m there at the orangutan sanctuary, something will click.  Somehow, I will figure out how to use the skills and resources I have to really make a difference.

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