The late morning breeze sent rippling waves of gold across the rice field, as a feast was being prepared in the newly erected tarp shelters on the edge of the field. This morning the Wehean Dayak village that generously welcomed us whole heartedly into their
close-knit community took us to their tree nursery and after ceremoniously
planting a few trees we took the dusty, back-breaking pick-up ride over to join
the rest of the group in the community

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After the hustle and bustle of the Samarinda and Sangata cities, and the sad condition of the palm oil and coal-mine filled Kutai National Park, we finally made it to Wahea Village. Wahea is an inspirational
and hopeful place because the community took the responsibility and initiative
to protect their forest. For two days we lived in villager’s homes, helped them
prepare to welcome a baby into the world and leanrned how the village uses and
depends on the forest everyday. T

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One of my favourite days on this expedition to date was taking a seven-hour detour to a traditional Dayak village. The catch however, was that getting there required a six-hour roundtrip boat ride so we only got to spend time with these people for an hour. At first

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When I was given the dates and itinerary for this expedition to Borneo, three things struck me right away:

1. I was going to see Orangutans

2. We would visit a freshwater lake filled with stingless jellyfish

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In his 2005 book The Future of Life, E.O. Wilson calls for a shift in the human relationship with the natural world. Wilson urges the human race to adopt a role of global
stewardship. As he states, our stewardship is the only hope for “the rest of
life”. Wilson makes a compelling case for his idea; unless we change the status
quo, the world as we know it will not survive through the imminent bottleneck
of human population growth and cons

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A long time has passed and a lot has happened since our voyage up the Mahakam River to interact with a traditional Dayak community, but the experience from that day still resonates
deep within me and I feel that I must discuss it. We started the day by getting
into 3-4 person canoes fitted with outboard motors and began boating upriver
through the reeds and island villages stationed
along the way. Cutting through intricate waterways created by

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One of my most memorable moments of this expedition occurred while trekking through a thick rainforest in Kutai National Park. Each step I took was accompanied by a peculiar crunch of leaves and a soft whistle through the trees which brought my attention to layers upon layers of bursting life. As I walked, a local ranger

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Imagine Earth as a gigantic liquor store with each fluid representing a different species. The vast expanse of generic beers can be thought of as the abundant but essential species commonly found in nature, i.e. ants. In one corner you will find a collection of rare and refined wines, like the nyrmicelon of Borneo's silicon forests, a species selectively adapted over thousands of years. Now travel to the furthest reaches of the store and you should stumble across some bizarre and exotic drinks,… Continue

My head rattled as we drove over another section of the bright red clay road that had been washed away leaving a tremendous pot hole. We were finally headed towards the primary rainforest of Wehea with a pit stop for a couple days in the community of Wehea village.

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I write from the top floor of an open-air ranger station deep in the heart of the 38 thousand hectare Wehea Protected Forest, ten very bumpy, very dusty hours north of Balikpapan. To my left, a babbling stream feeds into a deep pool; the first safe swimming we’ve
encountered. The laughs and yells of the Indonesian rangers experimenting with
our slack line filters up from below. Massive dipteroc

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A community’s culture is the set of mechanisms they develop which are best suited for achieving necessities from the specific environment that community inhabits. As an environment changes the communities culture must adapt new mechanisms to suite new or altered environmental characteristics. Most current environmental change results from resource extraction and the cultural shift from dependence upon the natural environments to dependence upon the capitalis… Continue

A pang of guilt encompassed me as I watched the flames of the bonfire dance off the weathered faces of the individuals methodically swaying to the beat of the drum. Hoots, hollers and laughter filled the warm
night air, accompanying the distant calls of the nocturnal animals beginning
their nightly ritual. Although there was a smile on my face and joy in my
actions, my mind was removed from the traditional dancing festivities occurring
around me.

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Thanks to rigorous anti-littering campaigns in North America, most of our waste ends up in a garbage can. Every week a large green dump truck comes and picks up our garbage from the side of the road, at which point we can
stop thinking about what happens to it. It is a different story in the
developing world. Most countries don’t have any sort of waste management system.
When I was at my host family’s house in Wahea village I asked their young
daughter where I could throw aw

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In most developing countries there seems to be lightness to everyone. In Indonesian everyone is so friendly and has a great sense of humor. I started to
believe that this lightness is necessary to live in a country without extensive
infrastructure, it takes so long to do anything and there is bound to be a
hiccup in the plans. In developing countrie

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It has taken twenty hours in an airplane, and twenty more in a
four-wheel-drive vehicle, to arrive at the stage where United Nations
environmental policy is being acted out. The script has been written
at the last three COP meetings (Conference of the Parties)—COP 15 in
Copenhagen being the latest—and the particular Indonesian version we
are about to see has been adapted by The Nature Conservancy, the USA’s
largest environmental NGO. It’s titled the Berau Forest Carbon Program,
and it is a pilot… Continue

A human being can go four to eight weeks without food, but only five days without water. I now dare you to hold your breath and see how long you can go without air…

Abraham Maslow is an American psychologist who established the notion that humans have a hierarchy of needs, and clean air rings in at number one. The other elements among this fundamental essential consist of clean water, clean soil and clean energy. Once these basic necessities are met, a new level of need arises. Because humanity… Continue

Yesterday I met Willie Smits, a micro-biologist, agro-forester and conservationist of minor celebrity status. We talked about the reforestation of Samboja Lastari & he gave me a personal speech similar to what earned him a standing ovation at his renowned TED talk. Part way through our discussion, Willie off-handedly remarked on a type of nearby forest that grows out of pure silica rather than soil. Immediately eight of us piled into the back of his pick-up truck and sped off to this silican… Continue

From day one of this wondrous adventure, I’ve been learning a lot about the complexities of conservation. And today, out of nowhere, I stumbled across a particularly important lesson – in order to make large scale changes, we must get everyone on board!

I spent the past 5 days in the lush rainforest of Samboja Lestari, a conservation project that started 9 years ago to care for orangutans and sun bea… Continue

Big Ideas

Last year when I was first told that our Ethical Expeditions group was going to visit Samboja Lestari, and might have the chance to meet the person in charge of its implementation, Willie Smits, I began to grow excited. I had watched Willie’s TED talk on his project in East Kalimantan, and was blown away by how in depth his analysis was of this project. It seemed that everything had been thought through. He had created solutions to problems all the way from avoiding wildfires in the a… Continue

The world has many problems. Today, I listened to a group of 8th grade students list off about ten serious global issues in just as many seconds. I’m sure, given more time they would have reached one hundred. With so many problems, one could be excused for feeling overwhelmed. How can a single person possibly go about implementing solutions? How can any one person make a difference?
I have had this conversation with myself many times. As I reached my teens, I became more and more aware of the pr… Continue