Reflections on Borneo in Jogja

A short video clip from footage I've taken in Borneo over the past 3 years.

It's a call to Action...  and I hope the message echos far and wide, because the next decade is absolutely critical to not only the survival of Orangutan and the forests of Borneo, but to the balance of life on our planet as we know it.

Our generation has an historic opportunity, a window in time, to change course and avert unprecedented loss of biodiversity, secure climate stabilizing carbon-rich forests and protect the ancestral lands of Borneos indigenous peoples (and the wisdom contained within their earth-connected culture).

It's a challenge of epic proportions, and yet we must try every possibility in saving the remaining forest on our planet because the opportunity we have today will not be as fertile in a decade if the business-as-usual trajectory continues.

Personally, I would rather not focus too much on what will happen if we continue on the current path of economic growth, rampant consumerism and industrial expansion.

Rather, I choose to focus on giving energy to those systems and living models that will lead us back towards a thriving and sustained human presence in harmony with this beautiful planet.

It's a challenging time to be alive, on a lot of levels, yet it's also an exciting and opportunistic moment to be enrolled in the school of life 101 planetary transformation.

I believe that systems and culture can shift in an instant, tipping points can be reached and the whole game plan changes... if we live our life from this edge, then all we can do is follow our hearts and be open to real and lasting change.

The Community Conservation Forest in the village of Tem'bak

DeforestAction

The filming of  the documentary following our 100 days in the jungles of Borneo is officially over but the DeforestAction project is only just getting started.

This week Dr Willie Smits and a couple of fellow Eco-Warriors, Liza Heavener and Chris Gauthier, gave ketnote speaches at one of the largest educational conferences in the world (ITSE).

What DeforestAction brings to the classrooms has become a revolution in education. School students now have the opportunity to be involved in real life conservation projects. This mean we are educating a whole new generation of conscious global citizens who are passionate about creating a better world, for all people and all life on our planet.

Check out below what some of the eductors thought about this radical new concept in education..

Meanwhile.. Back in Borneo....

Our Dayak family playing in the thriving community vegie garden. Perlo, Kimson and Iren.

It's been such an epic journey and I really don't know where to start in summarizing my Borneo experience.

Ben Dessens account of the '100 days in the jungle' sums up the over-all project beautifully in his blog.

After spending 3 months in the heart of West Borneo with the Dayak people, I feel we've all had a small but  potent taste of how the majority of people on our planet actually live. This experience will stay with us for the rest of our life.

Subsistence farming, Community living and Earth-connection...

Cultural Perspectives

Although, from a western perspective, some may say that most Dayak people live in the 'third world' or 'developing' conditions, in reality these people experience a very abundant lifestyle and it's the 'development' and modern industrial expansion that ultimately threatens the health and culture of the Dayak people. As palm oil companies continue to encroach on their ancestral lands, they lose the very eco-system abundance that has sustained them for countless generations.

Who are we to say these people are 'poor' when they have lived in harmony with forest systems that have survived for millions of years, where they source the majority of their food and building supplies from their own land and are surrounded by a supportive and loving family network, regularly sharing meals with up to four generations in the same house.

The sad irony is that the indigenous people of Borneo do become poor when, mostly out of financial desperation or blatant  cheating by the big companies, they loose their land to palm oil companies, one of the main driving forces of 'economic development' in Indonesia. Because they loose sovereignty over their land.

As far as I have witnessed, the Dayak people of Tem'bak live a life of abundance.

I'm not talking about an abundance of iPhones or wide-screen televisions. I'm talking about natural abundance, the abundace that is actually alive and growing and continues to give, season after season.

In my eyes, the Dayak people of Tem'bak live a life that is rich beyond our western comprehension. Especially considering they have said NO to palm oil and have retained rainforest on their ancestral lands, providing abundant clean water and thriving eco-system function . They have fought for their sustainability.

On top of this, they have micro-hydro power so don't pay any electricity bills.

Tem'bak is powered by sustainalbe micro-hydro electricity. This village was the first in Kalimantan to get electricity in the interior. There are now half a dozen micro-hydro systems in the region.

Life in Tem'bak is all about community, there is no stress to get to work on time and the children are masters of play. The kids never fight and playtime generally consists of swimming in the rivers, building little cubby houses or playing soccer with each other. There is a massive emphasis on sharing and therefore squabbles over who owns what just doesn't happen.

I know it sounds like I am romanticizing the living conditions of the Dayak people, and of course, to a degree, I am.

Three months isn't long enough to truly understand the complexities of Dayak society and the inevitable inner struggles that all people on our planet experience. Of course they want to develop and want to give their children a better education and access to healthcare. Of course some of them long for a 'better life' and have wants and desires.

Perhaps they even romanticize our existence in the west, maybe due to the exposure of mainstream media, the ultimate tool for influencing a population that is geared towards individualistic consumerism

It's difficult to explain to them that, although we have a lot more abundance in the material and technological realms, we simply do not have the same sense of community that is the foundation of Dayak village life. The Western world is materially rich but in many ways we have lost our sense of community as these people experience it.

How to explain to the Dayak people that it may look like we have it all, but in reality there is more depression, loneliness and isolation in our world then they could ever comprehend. It's a complex topic, I am super grateful for being born in Australia with the opportunity to travel and explore our planet, I just feel our society has lost the plot on many levels and we've sacrificed a lot for comfort and convenience.

It's interesting to look at these issues from altnernative viewpoints.

This kind of sums up my little rant....

The Reforestation Team

The reforestation spent the bulk of our time partnering with a dutch reforestation volunteer, Bram, and assisting a local Dayak man, 'Pak Niat' who has been planting trees for over 4 decades. Some of the 'Tankawan' trees he has planted are massive canopy giants and produce a traditional, healthy alternative to palm oil.

Pak Niat preperaing poly-bags for the arrival of 6000 sugar palm seedilngs

Pak Niat sings beautiful traditional 'Iban' songs whilst filling up poly-bags in the nursery and when asked why he is so passionate about reforestation his reply was 'I like to breath the fresh green air'. He has a forestry background and is also working to ensure timber security as well as income from alternative forest products.

After working on numerous nursery's around Tem'bak, we were eventually able to build a community nursery in the village of Tem'bak that will serve to nurse thousands of sugar palm and native plants for future reforestation. 

Reforestation team returning to Tem'bak to see the nursery filled with poly-bags, thanks to the hard work of Bram, Pak Niat and the local people.... success!

Tree planting with the team using 'Sungai' hard-wood cuttings we prepared a month earlier.

One of half a dozen reforestation and ecology workshops I held in the local highschool

The Inner Journey

On a personal level, this was most certaintly the most challenging 3 months of my life and yet the richest and most rewarding.  From the highest highs to the lowest lows.

After just 3 months, I feel like I've been away from Australia for over a year, it's a very strange feeling.

Ultimately I'm learning a great deal about acceptance, attitude, perspective and expectations.

The ultimate challenge was finding the balance between accepting things you can't change (about yourself and the project) and working out what it is that you can and need to change (about yourself AND the project).

It was a big learning curve in what energy not to take on from other people, and what energy and issues needed to reconciled within yourself.

 At times it was an emotional melting pot and my greatest difficulties came directly from not creating enough time to myself, to keep grounded and centered in the turbulence of group dynamics and the ever-changing project conditions.

Tom and I working in neighbouring village helping with their micro-hydro dam wall.
Photo by Deny Sofian.

I learnt a lot about myself, both positive and negative, and came out the other end feeling a strange and unexpected sense of calm and clarity with this crazy journey, despite having been deep in the woods of uncertainty, doubt and fear.

The antidote to the confusing times was a healthy dose of self-love and acceptance, which I am learning that no one else can give you as powerful a dose as yourself.

I found it interesting how we often seek from others what we actually need to first give to ourselves, such as forgiveness and compassion.

Sometimes we have to really experience the darkness to appreciate and know the light...

Reflections on the Lakes in Danau Sentarum National Park

 Towards the end of the project we traveled up to a remote national park close the border with Malaysia, for a much needed time of reflection and envisioning.

This place is incrediby beautiful, and teaming with biodiversity. They still have wild orangutans in the forest near the Iban longhouse that we visited, and over 80% of the fish in West Borneo originate in these pristine lakes. It was a reminder of why we are doing the work we do, and that there still exists huge swathes of pristine ecological communities that are protected.

The Eco-Warriors; my friends from around the world

We spent a week up in the Lakes doing a lot of project visioning and some guided meditation with various elders from our budding little community.

This was a time of integration. A time to reflect, make sense of the journey and let go of all the expectations, projections and pre-conceptions that many of us were perhaps still holding onto.

It was incredibly healing for the group as a whole and for myself personally I was able to release a lot of 'stuff' and reconnect with my higher self, my vision and my purpose. After watching the stars from a longboat on a massive lake in interior Borneo, everything suddenly makes perfect sense once again. 

Expanded Perspective = Clarity

We finished the 100 days in Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan, with a photographic exhibition showcasing our experience in Borneo, followed by a rather splendid night of drumming and reggae music.

 The next day everyone, except Tom and myself, travelled to Singapore to take part in a campaign focused on conscious consumerism. (for Visa reasons we stayed in Indonesia).

Fabrice, Kodi and myself on a photo shoot in Singapore. planting the seeds of 'conscious consumerism'

After saying some emotional goodbyes to the team back in Borneo, myself and Tom Smith travelled to Bali where I had the great blessing of connecting with my parents (whom I love beyond any possible description).

I was also able to catch up with a really good friend I had not seen in a very long time and had many a nights of reminiscing on the times of old. Bali was super fun and it was an interesting experience seeing so many Australians in one place again. Tom and myself ripped up the dancefloor on multiple occasions

Yogjakarta

I'm now based in the student capital of Indoneisa, Yogjakarta, in central Java. It's a hub for students, artists, musicians and social change activists.

This place is quite simply, amazing.

Sure, it's a big smelly city with motor bikes and people everywhere. But there is a sense of calm amongst the chaos.

Junowan - from the moluccas islands in east indonesia

I am experiencing continous waves of positivey from the Indonesian people and the few travelers that make it to Jogja are consistently awesome human beings. We've made friends with people from every major island in Indonesia; from Sumatra and Borneo to Sulewesi, Timor to the Moluccas. People come from all over Indonesia and the world to study in Jogja and this creates a very open, tolerant and creative community.

My Australian friend, Tony Allison, who was the project manager for the film about DeforestAction, has also traveled here to explore the thriving music and arts culture, and pick up a bit of Bahasa Indonesian.

We are staying in an arts and cultural center close to the saltans palace. On our first night out on the town the streets were alive with festivities, smiley happy people everywhere... I'm thinking it must be some celebration or festival?, but discovered that this happens every night of the year in Jogja.

 I really love Indonesian people. They are super friendly and down-to-earth. I speak only a basic survival level of Bahasa Indonesian, but still the universal language of smiles and laughter is shared abundantly by all. This place is really growing on me and I can see the relationship with Indonesian becoming long-term.

I am currently exploring the possibility of finding a volunteer position for 6-12months next year so I can continue deepening the connection with these lands and its people, working on forest restoration and conservation.

Myself, Tony, Tom (and his girlfriend Nina) will return to West Kalimantan in 2 weeks to continue working on ground projects and exploring new opportunities for future long-term volunteer engagement. I will  spend another month on the ground, partnering with local NGO's, before returning to Australia in August.

Cheers,

Paul

From the concrete jungle in Singapore to the Forests of Borneo

It's been a month since I arrived in Indonesia, where in the milky way has the time gone? and yet it feels like I've been out here in Borneo for months.

The last week alone feels was a journey of extremes into the deepest depths of the worlds most polarized opposites. From a small Dayak village in the heart of Borneo to what felt like the central powerhouse of asian consumerism, Singapore.

From the towering trees of a living rainforest in Borneo.

To the sky-scraper canopy of the concrete jungle in Singapore.

Geographically not that far apart, but worlds a part in terms of culture, sustainability, economics, biodiversity and lifestyle.

Did you know that 150 years ago there were still Tigers in the interior of Singapore and on average a chinaman was eaten every single day! woahhh

So, Myself, Kodi and Fabrice had to go to Singapore to renew our Indonesian visa's, pick up some sponsored laptops from and meet with an organization called Qi who are working to increase sustainability awareness through conscious/ethical consumerism in mainstream singapore consciousness.

It's a concept that i feel mixed about, despite the great intentions. Can we truly consume our way to sustainability?

We are consumers no matter which way you look at it (eco-systems are based on consumption, decomposition and recyling) so I guess making this process truly conscious of supply chains, ecological footprint, ethical impacts, etc, is a good thing, right?

Perhaps this is a way to plant seeds of awareness in the heart of the consumer world? Will the seeds sprout in Singapore? (metaphorical question of course).

Is this a fertile land for change... or are we trying to change the world with the same level of thinking that create the problems in the first place? Modern consumerism creating a feeling of lack that is only fixed (short-term) by buying more 'things' (buying your identity).

I'm not sure, but sitting on the fence is boring so we have to try multiple approaches.

Never the less the plan is to hold an event after the project finishes in June in a 'sustainable' shopping mall where we will encourage people to 'plant a seed for the future' by selling cards with seed that will corrispond to the real work we are doing in Borneo restoring forest. Plus press events and marketing of the 'Eco-Warrior' concept.

Meanwhile back in Borneo..

I want to tell you about an amazing little place called 'Tembak' where the Reforestation team have been based.

local rice production in Tembak

Tembak is a Dayak village in the interior of West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. They have a very unique story to share with the world and are now the central focus for the DeforestAction project, and therefore the documentary being produced about the eco-warriors.

Check out these two video below for a visual and sonic journey into the Dayak world of Tembak





The people of Tembak were the first ever in the interior of Borneo to get off-grid electricity. They have a micro-hydro power generator that uses the natural force of a flowing stream to power their entire village, complete renewable energy.

They've resisted the insidious efforts of big multinational logging and palm oil companies to sell off their land and therefore have retained not only their ecological but also cultural integrity and identity.

Close to the village is a community rainforest conservation area that is sustainably and selectively logged (for local use) and still retains healthy eco-system function and therefore high biodiversity.

One of the gorgeous Honey Tree's that local villagers climb to source bush honey. Our new nursery will be based right under this gorgeous specimen.

The new nursery in Tembak, right beneath the big old honey Tree! perfect.

One of the villager's has his own nursery with thousands of plants that have timber, food and medicinal qualities. For the Reforestation Team this is a huge benefit, as we are not starting from stratch or imposing our ideas into the community but rather working with the local people to empower and emplify their own vision for restoring forest cover with beneficial species composition.

The film team are documenting the development of the project and hopefully can tell the world about the science of reforestation and how we can help the natural process of forest restoration along in a mutually benficial way.

Tembak is now set to be the first site in West Kalimantan for releasing orphaned orangutans, and the Wildlife rehabilitation team is working hard to achieve this goal in partnership with the Kobus foundation, a local NGO who has invited us to Indonesia.

The people of Tembak want to embrace eco-tourism so they can create livelihood independent of extractive industries. They make a decent enough living off tapping rubber trees and although they live a simple life, are not really what I would call 'poor' people, in the wholistic sense of the word.

In fact, seeing as they have retained some good forest cover and haven't allowed palm oil onto their lands, I see them as being a very abundant community.

It is the wet-season right now, so the roads are at their worst, which makes for interesting travel.

Local man, Pak Apuia, with a huge database of plant knowledge contained within his very own mind. Here he is making us a machette for working on the project. His son, Agung, is learning all he can from his father so that the traditions and knowledge can be passed on to the next generation.

Introducing Shadrack Kalasa from Kenya, who is a part of the Reforestation team. Shadrack brings a majority world perspective to the team and a big warm heart that matches his shiny night-lite smile. Mostly quiet and reserved during our dynamic group meetings, every now and then he'll pipe up with some truly wise words that often start with 'Back in Kenya' ... always giving an expanded perspective to the unfolding story

Tom Smith is another Reforestation Eco-Warrior. Despite the eye-peircing glance captured in this photo, Tom is actually one of the funniest guys I've ever met in my entire life, it's raw, dark, unfiltered, brittish humour to the core and almost as black as Shadrack. For those who know my style of humour, you could imagine we have a cackle or two in our days spent together.

The 3 of us have bonded a lot in the past month and have had a near-death experince, which I won't elaborate on in this blog update so as to respect the privacy of what actually went down (you'll have to watch the doco when its released early next year) INTENSE!

Here we are working in the existing nursery of local man, Pak Niat. It's a very different set-up to what I'm used to back home and has been a huge learning curve in how to progate plants in a remote jungle setting with limited resources.

Some of the lush vegetation encountered in walks through the rainforest.

Playing soccer with the young people in this village is an afternoon highlight. Rain, Hail or Shine. The kids are so much fun to play with, they never fight with each other and grow up in such an amazing community.


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A typical Tembak set-up, they love having fish ponds around thier homes so can grow a good supply of fish and protein to suppliment their mostly rice-based diet. They also have loads of fruit trees planted, of course, whilst we call this 'permaculture' back home in Australia they don't have a name for it. It's survival, it's life.

This is the Indonesian cameraman, Ezther, filming a slow-loris (possum like creature with big eyes). His laugh sounds almost identical to a Kookaburra! it's fantastic

Tom and Pak Apui trying to spot the Slow Loris

An amazing catapillar we came across whilst mapping the community forest in Tembak. I'm certain there are species in here which are yet to be 'discovered' by the scientifict community.

A Papilio butterfly, so many gorgeous colours in these tropical species.

And last but not least, this amazing spider which seems to be rather common in the forest and around the village. Incredible biodiversity.

Thanks for tuning in, We are heading back out to Tembak tomorrow and may not be back to Internet communication for 5 weeks.

Solutions exist. that's pretty much the bottom line.

Lets give them our energy!

~Paul Daley~

2012: Back in Borneo for 80 days with DeforestACTION

The energy of our first week back in Borneo has shown me first hand the powerful reality of 'Synergy'. That is, the way group dynamics can bring about more creativity, passion, drive and inspiration to the team, as a whole, then the total sum of the 'individual' parts.

A group entity is formed...

When people gather with a common vision that is focused on planetary service, this synergistic energy creates a kind of force-field that uplifts and sustains the group through the challenges and pitfalls along the path to reaching our goals in Borneo.

It's amazing! Just being reunited with the eco-warriors helps to alleviate a lot of the fear, uncertainty and doubt that surfaced for me personally during my 5 months back in Australia since returning from Borneo during the first 20 days of the project, back in September 2011.

Below is a short clip I put together to the wonderful tunes of 'Nomad' that tells the story of our first actions since arriving back to Borneo.



It's been a whilst since I've updated this blog, my world has radically changed since the last post.

I have gone from the relative stability of affluent Australia, living together with my partner on an environmentally conscious community, surrounded by lush secondary rainforest... to walking 8 days through the southern alps of New Zealand along an ancient pathway known as 'The Peace Trail'... to the emotional woes of a relationship break-up... all the way to the present moment of this challenging and sometimes uncertain world of a pioneering environmental project in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Life is all about change, and I suppose my life has been a little microcosm of the instability that is going on all around the planet as we are being called to change our ways, to find ways of living together that honors the rights of future generations to inherit a thriving, abundant and liveable planet.

As Eco-Warriors from around the globe, we engage with a truly diverse and sometimes conflicting range of stakeholders, from corporate Microsoft interested in increased product sales through schools to indigenous Dayak people fighting for their cultural sustainability to future generations, who have no current voice but our own and are often of least concern to policy makers in this rapidly changing world.

We represent our support networks from across the globe who have personally donated money to help sustain our work financially, as well as the many thousands of students from all over the planet who are focused on saving orangutan, and assisting the Dayak people in conserving the future of our planets tropical rainforest.

For those new to my blog, DeforestActionn is a group of young people from around the world working on the ground in Borneo to implement solutions to the deforestation crisis.

We are under the guidance of Dr Willie Smits, our visionary leader and mentor who is right now meeting in Holland with a group of 20 scientists and investors looking to support his radical solution to the world energy crisis, Sugar Palm agro-forestry and zero-waste eco-Village hubs.

Sometimes I feel like Willie believes in us to the point that it is challenges our belief in ourselves. He is a truly incredible man and operates on a level of passion, purpose and commitment that is way beyond anything I've ever witnessed before. Check out his Sugar Palm reforestation concept that we will be implimenting in Borneo HERE

In our first week back in Borneo our team has already started helping to upgrade the Sintang Orangutan Centre (SOC), based at our on-ground partners, the Kobus Foundation (working to empower the indigeous Dayak people economically and ecologically).

JoJo is now 3 years old and has doubled her weight since we rescued her from a wooden cage last September. She now has a friend, Juvi who is of a similar age and seems to be the bossy one of the two!

Check out this youtube clip of Jojo and Juvi playing together at the Sintang Orangutan Cetnre.

Some of the eco-warriors working to move the fallen trees that will be used in further construction and upgrades at SOC.

A massive tropical storm knocked over some Eucalyptus trees and destroyed a section of the fence at the Sintang Orangutan Centre. The coppicing shoots demonstrate the immense resilience of the natural world to respond to disturbance, if given the chance, after such devastation.

Shadrack from Kenya, helping to build the new fence.

Fabrice, Australian based Frenchmen nailing in some wire.

Ben and Perry rolling out another run of barbed wire.

Kodi painting the animal rescue cages.

Liza, painting the new office at the Sintang Orangutan Centre.

There has been a lot of hands on action, as well as project planning and hosting an online DeforestAction webinar (kind of like a massive educational skype conference streamed live over the internet) for thousands of school students all around the globe.

This was such an exciting day, we held 4 webinars over 16 hours updating our school networks on our work in Borneo, helping to increase ecological literacy in schools and engage students directly in solution-based problem solving.

Our education team, Mark Kuroski and Kodi Twiner did an amazing job of engaging the students and updating our supporters of the project and vision for the next 80 days.

We even held one in the Kobus longhouse just before midnight! Shadrack can be seen in the foreground hibernating, with Kodi & Mark hosting the final webinar for North American and Canada timezones.

This little critter is a micro-bat. He hit the fan one night and the animal rescue team kept him overnight until her recovered and was ready for release the next evening.

We also have some exciting news, Earthwatchers has officially launched. This is the component of DeforestAction that maps and monitors forests using satlite technogy. Led by Fabrice, Chai & Fa who are also experimenting with the use of a drone to get high quality footage and photo's from a birds eye view above the forest.

Chai from Earthwatchers getting a demonstration on how to fly the drone remote controlled aeroplane.

Students from the nearby school come to see what all this fuss is about. Ali and Fabrice going through the remote control device.

The kids are in awe of this giant paper aeroplane!

We will upload a video of our first flight tests very soon!

Tomorrow the Earthwatchers team and the Reforestation team are heading out to the incredible Dayak village of Tembak. These are the real eco-warriors, who fought off the logging and palm oil companies and retained their biodiverse ancestral forests.

The village is run on micro-hydro electricity from a nearby spring-fed stream. My team will be focused on working with the existing nursery and reforestation efforts already being implemented by the Dayak's themselves. These people are so kind and humble and are the perfect example of living in harmony with the natural world that they are intrinsically interwoven with.

They have a 63 hectare community forest that has been donated to be used as a release site for Orangutans and other wildlife. Nearby is a 20,000 hectare area of forest that is also being secured as a Dayak conservation reserve!

We are not sure about the internet situation out in Tembak, but plan to return to Sintang Orangutan Centre @ Kobus house in 2 weeks.

Stay tuned for updates and if you feel to donate please visit my personal fundraising page @ Every Day Hero

With love and gratitude for life on this most gorgeous little blue planet,

Paul Daley