|
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
Interview: Erik Meijaard
The Nature Conservancy scientist talks about a new plan to save orangutans (and their forests) in Indonesia, why he’s partial to pigs and how he makes sense of the world when all seems lost.
—By Courtney Leatherman
Nature Conservancy: Indonesian President Yudhoyono recently launched an action plan to save orangutans from extinction. The Conservancy pledged $1 million to help. How were you involved?
Erik Meijaard: I started doing orangutan conservation in 1994, surveying the whole of Kalimantan [the Indonesian part of Borneo] to find out where the remaining orangutan populations were. We started to get a good picture of what the problems were and then formulated some solutions. We have tried to get the orangutan conservation community to work together and to push the government to come up with some coherent plan. It’s taken us 13 years to get to that point.
Nature Conservancy: Why does the Conservancy care about orangutans?
Erik Meijaard: Orangutans are a symbol—one of the most powerful symbols—for forest conservation in Indonesia. What I emphasize is that we’re not specifically working for orangutans. We’re focused on habitats, forest ecosystems.
Nature Conservancy: But orangutans were already protected in Indonesia. So why is this a big deal?
Erik Meijaard: The only thing Indonesian law says is that you cannot kill an orangutan. No law said you can’t destroy orangutan habitat. The president gave a powerful speech—saying that 50,000 orangutans had died over the past 20 years because of poor habitat management. Basically, if we can manage the forest effectively, orangutans will be fine.
Nature Conservancy: But for you personally, is it really about the orangutans?
Erik Meijaard: I don’t think it’s ever been about the orangutans for me. It’s about the bigger environmental picture. I’m not one of these orangutan lovers. I think they’re an interesting species, but I’m a pig man, actually.
Nature Conservancy: Hmm. Let’s get back to your pigs in a minute. Tell me more about these “orangutan lovers.”
Erik Meijaard: There’s a little bit of a scene around orangutans. Orangutan conservation attracts certain personalities—a lot of people have strong, rather strange personalities. What annoys me is the enormous focus by the media on Western hero types that spend their entire lives working in the forests. To me, it’s not very useful. It draws so much attention away from the real issues. And it annoys Indonesians, the glamorizing of conservation.
Nature Conservancy: But you work with these people, right?
Erik Meijaard: I’m on a mission. I can’t be involved with the little personal differences. You have this huge group of people—very talented, very dedicated—that could really push one agenda, if they would. This fragmented community also happens to compete for the same limited resources. We’re finally breaking through that. In the past year, we’ve managed to get representatives from these organizations to sit around the table and say, let’s get this going.
Nature Conservancy: Why do President Yudhoyono’s statements supporting this plan matter?
Erik Meijaard: He’s the big boss. Indonesia had a terrible problem with illegal logging. Everyone accepted it was going to destroy Indonesia’s forests. That was the general thinking in the conservation world. Then this president stepped up and made it clear illegal logging had to stop. Everyone seems to agree that over the past two years it has been greatly reduced. I’ve worked in this country for a long time; that really caught me by surprise. It gives a lot of hope, that now he can use that power to protect orangutan habitat.
Nature Conservancy: If Indonesia’s forests once seemed like a lost cause, why did you stay?
Erik Meijaard: You stay because you do believe that something can be done. I think it’s really stupid when you have a developing country that has tremendous potential—natural resources, human resources—and by poor management, you ruin the country. It doesn’t make sense. And I don’t want this world not to make sense.
Nature Conservancy: Help me make sense of this: With all the amazing animals to study in Asia, you became an expert on the bearded pigs of Borneo.
Erik Meijaard: I think they look cool. I’m a mammal specialist, and as a student, I did an entire study on deer dung. I think I picked up about 2 million pieces. It was the most beautiful data I’ve ever gathered. There were always pigs around when we worked. I loved to watch their interactions. They were very smart. I like pigs.
Nature picture credits: Photo © Landon Nordeman
