Compost sees big picture of saving wildlife<\/p>\n
Fritz Kuhlmann, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
The rhino saunters out of the incredibly green jungle. It gives a
\nlong, long look from it's old eyes in a cluster of wrinkles. Then
\nit turns and slowly walks away.<\/p>\n
\"The beauty of the moment,\" said Alain Compost, admiring the
\nscene on one of the three monitors in his studio. \"When an animal
\ndoes not flee when I'm filming, it's just as if it would accept
\nme.\"<\/p>\n
\"It's only a dream, of course.\"<\/p>\n
The wind had to blow in the right direction, he explained,
\nbecause if the rhino could smell him, it would run away at once.<\/p>\n
Alain Compost, 52, is famous for being one of the few people
\nwho has managed to photograph the notoriously shy Javan
\nrhinoceros, one of the rarest animals in the world with an
\nestimated 50 or so left in Ujung Kulon National Park on the
\nwestern tip of Java.<\/p>\n
The bald, short, muscular Frenchman today lives in a house in
\nthe countryside near Bogor with his Indonesian wife and children.
\nHe has been roaming throughout Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra and
\nother points in the archipelago for almost 30 years, \"but people
\ndon't know what I am really doing\".<\/p>\n
The wildlife photographer has begun to focus on educational
\nprojects. In July he plans to launch phase two of the Wanamedia
\nFoundation that he started two years ago. It will produce
\nindependently financed films, sponsored by NGOs like the World
\nWide Fund for Nature (WWF).<\/p>\n
Starting with the orangutan, each project will focus on one
\nspecies and consists of three films. One will be aimed at
\nchildren, the second at presenting the ecosystem of the animal
\nand a third giving the socio-economic context, targeting local
\ndecision-makers. It is a new approach to getting the message
\nacross about wildlife conservation.<\/p>\n
Any TV station will be allowed to show the films free of
\ncharge. But it is equally important to Compost that 1,000 VCDs of
\neach film will distributed to the people in the area where it has
\nbeen shot.<\/p>\n
\"After all, they decide about the survival of an animal,\"
\nCompost said. \"It's useless putting pretty pictures in books like
\nI did for so long, because just a certain kind of people will
\nlook at them.\"<\/p>\n
He is convinced the moving picture has much more power.<\/p>\n
Compost is a man full of contradictions. He tries to provide
\ninformation to people. He tells how he loves showing his films to
\namazed villagers who live near the habitat of the rhino but have
\nnever seen one in their life, because \"that's much more rewarding
\nthan to show it to an international public on TV channels like
\nAnimal Planet\".<\/p>\n
Nonetheless this always smiling man, unpretentious in his
\njeans and dark T-shirt, also says: \"Humans are a pest\".<\/p>\n
They are destroying nature that he is desperately trying to
\npreserve. If he had a choice, he would prefer the company of
\nanimals to that of people, Compost said, no joking.<\/p>\n
\"I am too extreme, I acknowledge that.\"<\/p>\n
It's out in the forest far from humanity where he feels at
\nease. When filming, he goes with his assistant Ali, sleeping in a
\nsimple tent.<\/p>\n
\"The forest is safe,\" Compost said. \"The water is not
\npolluted, you just have to watch out not to step on a snake.\"<\/p>\n
It's people that he considers dangerous. One of the few times
\nhe had to fear for his life out in the jungle was when he filmed
\nin Kerinci Seblat National Park in Jambi, Sumatra, one of the
\nlast strongholds of the Sumatran tiger. A tiger would only attack
\n\"when its life patterns are disturbed because the habitat is
\nlogged, its checkpoints in the forest are bulldozed\", Compost
\nsaid.<\/p>\n
But on this occasion he was filming the forest police
\narresting illegal loggers.<\/p>\n
\"Suddenly the villagers came by the hundreds, waving knives
\nand sticks,\" Compost said.<\/p>\n
The police fled, so the cameraman just kept on filming. \"They
\npushed us into our car and wanted to set it on fire.\"<\/p>\n
A local sawmill owner finally rescued the film team and took
\nthem to a police station. Even there, stones continued raining
\ndown on their refuge.<\/p>\n
Compost feels comfortable with some people, such as the Orang
\nRimba (forest dwellers), also in Jambi, who time and \"progress\"
\nhave passed by.<\/p>\n
\"They feel very close to nature, so I feel close to them.\" He
\nonce showed them a film about the forest people of Papua.<\/p>\n
\"The Orang Rimba thought they were the only ones living like
\nthat, despised by everybody. So when they discovered they are not
\nalone -- this was a very emotional moment.\"<\/p>\n
The pictures appeared in the big French magazine Paris Match,
\nalthough Compost rarely sells to such media.<\/p>\n
\"I am just not patient enough to do the necessary lobbying,\"
\nhe said.<\/p>\n
That is another contradiction, because photographing animals
\n-- or tribespeople -- takes an enormous amount of patience, just
\nwaiting for the right moment.<\/p>\n
Instead of engaging in small talk with editors, Compost sells
\nvia specialized agencies from his stock of 80,000 slides, all
\nstored in iron cabinets in his house.<\/p>\n
In fact, Compost could easily live in Paris and come over to
\nIndonesia to shoot for a few months every year. \"But everything I
\nhave, I owe it to Indonesia,\" he said. So he chose to stay --
\n\"especially now that everything is getting worse\".<\/p>\n
The reformasi (reform) movement had some bad side-effects, he
\nsaid. \"The natural parks are out of control; no one, including
\nlocal government representatives, respect them any more.\"<\/p>\n
Compost's love of animals no doubt comes from his previous
\nprofession. He was once a simple zoo keeper; he always wanted to
\nwork with animals, so when he failed to become a veterinarian, he
\nstarted working at the Paris Zoo.<\/p>\n
\"I often had to open cages for photographers, that's how I got
\nthe idea to try that myself.\"<\/p>\n
When taking pictures in the zoo in 1975, a chimpanzee bit him
\nbadly in his right hand, leaving scars still visible today.<\/p>\n
\"I didn't have any insurance, but the ape had,\" Compost said.
\n\"That's how I raised the money to come to Indonesia to stay.\"<\/p>\n
He had been here for a short visit before and had fallen in
\nlove with the country's threatened wildlife.<\/p>\n
\"Still, I don't think that anything I do really makes a
\ndifference. To be a conservationist is to be a loser.\"<\/p>\n
Still, Compost says resigning himself to reality is not an
\noption. Maybe he is a brother in mind to fellow Frenchman Albert
\nCamus, who imagined Sysiphos, the mythic figure trying to roll a
\nheavy stone uphill and destined to forever fail, as a happy
\nperson.<\/p>\n
Compost bears a fresh wound on his arm. Another ape, this time
\na gibbon, bit him. \"It was my mistake, of course, I surprised
\nhim.\"<\/p>\n
He keeps the animal in a huge caged part of his garden. The
\nwife of an animal catcher brought it to him after her husband ran
\naway and she was unable to handle things, the animals dying one
\nafter the other.<\/p>\n
An NGO will soon help to release the gibbon into a remote area
\nof Sumatra.<\/p>\n
\"In the big picture, that one animal doesn't matter at all,\"
\nCompost said. \"I just feel it's my responsibility.\"<\/p>",
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