Just over a year ago, I was in Sabah, Borneo. I spent eight days doing work relating to environmental service and biodiversity research.
A few weeks ago, I got to thinking about the trip and I realised that it had been one year exactly since I had seen a wild orangutan with her baby.
I took to social media, for while it definitely has it’s drawbacks, it also has benefits, and spreading awareness is most certainly one of them. I took inspiration from my GPers essay for this post:
If some of us think back approximately a year, we’ll be remembering our grade 9 expeditions. A year ago today, I was lucky enough to spot a wild orangutan in the forests of Borneo. I say I was lucky to spot an animal in its natural habitat because this habitat is rapidly shrinking.
In the recent piece of GPers coursework from the environment unit, I wrote about the effects of the palm oil industry on those same forests. This gigantic industry, along with poaching, is devouring Borneo’s forests. In 2010, only 59.6% of Borneo’s forests were suitable for its orangutans and this number has undoubtedly shrunk in the last seven years. Through the illegal and unsustainable logging occurring in this region of the world, this forest is split up into patches, many of which cannot properly sustain their orangutan populations. This can lead to poor health and unsuccessful reproduction. Female orangutans already only reproduce once every six to eight years, and yet the orangutan I saw had her baby with her.
This is why I call myself lucky to have seen an animal in her natural habitat, but I shouldn’t have to. Orangutans and so many other animals that we were fortunate enough to spot in Borneo shouldn’t be at risk of injury, habitat fragmentation or even death because of us.
While in Borneo, some of us looked into environmental conservation. We spoke to PhD and Masters students about what they saw as the future of the world if we didn’t change, and about what we could do. In all honesty, what they said scared me. Natural disasters on the rise, something we’re already experiencing, more conflict, unemployment levels rising, fewer resources and so much more. But, they also said that this is reversible. We can still go back.
Through small actions such as not using air conditioning, turning off lights, using recycled materials, eating less meat or taking shorter showers.
So, this October break, or half term, please keep this in mind. One person doing these things isn’t going to make a large difference, but if everyone did just one of these things, we’d be on a much better path already.
Being in Borneo really opened my eyes to the severity of the state of our planet. Admittedly, my interest and the amount of energy I put into doing my part decreased in the year after the trip, however, once we started looking at environmental issues in GPers, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. So, I wrote about deforestation as a result of the palm oil industry in Sabah, Borneo. When I was in Borneo, I learnt the general facts about the effects of both the palm oil industry and poaching occurring in the area as well as some responses in the local area. I knew very little about the companies and international bodies who also had and have an impact on this. Through GPers, I was able to explore and fill in my knowledge on these topics. While I have truly enjoyed other pieces of GPers coursework (particularly my human rights essay where I compared Sweden and Switzerland on their asylum rights and gender wage gaps), I would definitely consider this my favourite piece due to how much I learnt and how relevant the information is to me personally.
