A day with a conservation chief in Bali

Tri Siswo Raharjo, chief of West Bali's Conservation Office, loves to dress like a Texas cowboy from Hollywood westerns, with a Stetson, greyish green shirt and casual pants and sneakers.

A bureaucrat transplanted to West Bali National Park by the Central government in 1999, his way of viewing environmental issues is as independent as his dress sense. The 41-year-old father of three befriends non-governmental organization (NGO) activists, but also considers the opportunities to reconcile conservation and business through ecotourism.

The Jakarta Post's Pandaya spent a day recently with Tri.

CEKIK, West Bali (JP): It was one of Tri's very important days in the office in Cekik: meeting with activists from Conservation International (CI), at 10 a.m. He was eager to impress the CI boss, Russel Mittermeier, that his Save the Bali Starling campaign deserved the U.S.-based NGO's assistance.

He took the four guests to the meeting room where he briefed them about the national park and the conservation efforts his office has been making. Rambutan and snake fruit were served.

After the 10-minute briefing, he took the group to the breeding center, some three kilometers to the north of the office, in two cars.

Forest rangers and forest police officers greeted him, their "commandant", with a military salute.

"We want to build iron fences around the existing aviary to prevent the 1999 robbery from happening again," he told his guests after touring the complex.

The next destination was a Bali starling reintroduction post in Menjangan island, a popular resort for surfers. The group arrived at the post after a 30-minute journey from a quay on a wooden motorboat.

A small accident happened when Tri as the "tour leader" alighted from the boat. The flimsy wooden ladder cracked under his weight, throwing him into the water. He was wet all over. His cell-phone was soaked too but -- "hello, hello" -- thankfully, it was water-resistant.

"It was a good thing that it was me who fell from the boat," the red-faced bureaucrat said. "If it was them, what in the world would they have said about us?" he said, referring to Mittermeier and his wife Christina.

After a brief lecture about the post and its facilities, Tri showed his guest around the post, with water still dripping from his shirt and pants.

"Our rangers sleep in those wooden beds with lighting by kerosene lamps. Drinking water is a precious thing supplied on an irregular basis," he said. "By the way, there are no malaria mosquitoes here, you are safe."

The next trip took us to a hill where much of the national park spread below and beyond. Tri told his rangers to whistle and call some starlings for the guests to see.

It was really his day. His wish to please his guests came true. A shiny white starling flew in over the horizon and perched on a tall tree for everybody to watch.

Although it was only a white dot from the distance, the guests beamed with joy.

"Hah, we are watching one of the world's 13 mynahs in the wild," said Mittermeier, who spotted another two starlings in the jungle trip that day.

Tri could not say no when at dusk his American guests insisted on going to the place where another CI activist, Tom, had sighted a hanging parrot the previous day.

"Let them go to satisfy their curiosity," he told his aide.

Some half an hour later, his guests came out of the forest, saying the parrot was nowhere to be seen, perhaps because it was dark already.

Time was flying as the night fell. We sped off to a $75 million eco-resort in the jungle, being built by a Jakarta-based private company in cooperation with the park management.

Tri entertained his guests at an elevated cottage from where we could enjoy the landscape of the forest and the boisterous sound of insects.

He explained how he struggled for the materialization of the project despite bureaucratic and financial hurdles.

The jungle trip ended at about 9 p.m. We moved out along three kilometers of dusty roads to get to the main road.

"It took a long time before I managed to ensure the company (that is building the resort) that we should keep the dirt paths. If they insisted on having them asphalted, then they would lose their natural character," Tri said.

Communications on handie-talkies with rangers in the jungle continued along the way back to Cekik that night. Tri asked them not to hesitate to shoot criminals who threatened their lives, but never to take the law into their own hands.