The Rainforest
A couple of months before starting at LCA on this course, my partner and I travelled to Indonesia and hopped around as many of the 922 inhabited islands (out of a total 18,306 that make up Indonesia) as we could. We began in Java, visiting the capital city 'Jakarta' and made our way north before hopping over to Kalimantan and the Borneo rainforest. Here we spent some time with the locals, rented a river boat and made our way in to the rainforest. Our aim being to make it to the Pangalanbun Nature reserve, the centre of Orangutan rehabilitation efforts here.
What we discovered whilst travelling through this part of the world is that Indonesia has it all - except the infrastructure to sustain human needs whilst protecting the environment and major natural habitats. The Borneo rainforest in being destroyed, ancient habitats, trees, plants and vegetation cut down or burnt to make way for the profitable "Palm" trees which provide the fruit which in turn contain the oil that is in most food based products we use in the UK and all over the world.
There is nothing like travelling by boat on magnesium polluted rivers in to the heart of what is meant to be one of the most thriving parts of the world, just to see palm after palm after palm. Nothing can live here other than snakes and rats and the indigenous tribes that have no choice but to follow their ancestors and live off of all the river can give them, gamble with their lives - catching fish saturated with poisonous mercury and other chemicals used in the disgusting gold mining trade here.
We were on the boat for 4 days, unable to shower because of the level of pollutants in the water here and I suddenly felt a huge part of the problem. Tourism obviously funds a lot of conservation efforts here and in many parts of the world, however in Borneo boats would cause traffic on the jungle rivers, just to make it to see the orangutan - littering these water ways. Once coming face to face with the orangutan at the various feeding stations and along the river edge, my heart broke. These animals are illusive by nature - used to wild, undisturbed solitude. Their habitats have literally nearly all gone to the trade of Palm oil and gold mining and even the efforts of conservation are proving to have a harmful effect on these amazing creatures as it clear to me the devastating effect of human interaction with what is meant to me a completely illusive animal.
The Reefs
After the rainforest we headed over to Bali and Lombok, 2 beautiful islands with a considerable amount of traffic from AUS. In short Bali felt rich in places (acting like Australia's 'spanish' / 'magaluf' destination), Lombok felt forgotten due to the high temperatures and clear lack of economy to help locals thrive here.
We finished off our journey travelling to a group of islands called the Gili Islands. We had both gotten food poisoning at the point in the trip so made it as far as the larger of the islands (but still super small) called Gili Trawangan (Gili T for short). Considered a "honeymoon" / "party island" there are no cars or larger forms of transport. You arrive by speed boat and travel either by foot around the island, horse and carriage or bike.
Honeymooning and partying is not why we came here. Recent efforts have been made to build up wild sea turtle populations in this area, with baby turtles being bred and released right on the beach and we wanted to do our bit to help in any way that we could (in a hopefully more hands-on approach instead of the typical British way of just chucking money at a cause and hoping for the best).
Swimming in the oceans off of Gili T should have been a beautiful, undisturbed, natural phenomenon of an experience - not short of the "paradise" they sell you on the neighbouring mainland billboards. Dive schools & training seemed to be a success here, the seas were turquoise and inviting and schools of fish could be seen darting around in the shallows, however venturing deeper soon became unbearable. Being submerged in the ocean felt like being stung by 1000 tiny bees all at once and small shards of pink could be seen everywhere like floating dust in the clear water. It wasn't until diving down to the sea floor that I realised what all these stinging pins were. The boats and tourism here, as well as the blast fishing techniques used to feed the locals living on these remote islands were causing so damage, that the coral - all coral had been destroyed. Smashed into tiny shards, this was all that was left of The Gili islands coral reef, everything else lay lifeless, grey and baron on the sea bed.
A luscious habitat, one that draws people in from all over the world has been destroyed. The promise of being one of the best dive spots in the world continues to baffle people once they arrive, having to get boats to neighboring islands in order to see any decent sign of life. It honestly broke my heart and changed my view of this "paradise" desert island for good.
My experiences in Indonesia taught me a lot and really influence the way i live now. I make as much effort as I can to donate to the growing conservation efforts for both rainforest's and reefs in this part of the world and as soon as I can afford it, I hope to return in the future to volunteer my help in conservation.
In summary:
https://www.matungou.com/no-more-dynamite-fishing/
Dynamite fishing, reef bombing or cyanide fishing are used interchangeably to describe the illegal fishing method that is destroying the reefs of Indonesia. Sodium Cyanide fishing originated in the 1950’s where it was originally used to stun the fish so to capture them and sell for aquariums. In more recent times it has been used for food fishing. Grouper, Wrasse and Coral Trout are amongst the popular species targeted. As they seek these larger food fish, their destructive method kills little fish, coral, crayfish, turtles and many more.
The Mentawai Authorities are certainly opposed to the fishing method and it is illegal under Indonesian law. These fishermen are fully aware of the ecological consequences of this fishing method; so why do they continue to do it? Well, the extremely low wages of the fishermen in remote, underdeveloped areas of the world; where there are no alternative sources of income, drive them to endure the health risks and possible prosecution (albeit unlikely) in order to make money to feed themselves and their family.
And so it appears we have ourselves a big problem. We can shake our heads all we like but without real action there will be no reason for these fishermen to change their methods. The local Mentawai Authorities are starved of resource by their Indonesian Government for many years and this trend will not change drastically anytime soon. The only thing that will stop them currently will be when all the reefs are dead.
The reef cannot protect itself.
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The Plan:Turning a negative into a positive - creatively.
I would like to create work for the OUIL505 module that has impact, educates and ultimately spreads awareness of this awful environmental issue. I hope to research further into the destruction of all coral reefs globally and find out new information with regards to the oceanic conservation efforts being made. I plan on creating work within the context of "object and environment", producing illustration with a purpose and hopefully beginning what will be a much larger body of work (within my personal practice) which can in turn be sold on in the future, proceeds of which will be donated to this necessary cause.
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