Orangutans lure tourists to Bohorok

By Sugianto Tandra

BUKIT LAWANG, South Aceh (JP): A group of orangutans race silently down from the treetops when they spot their caretakers approaching the feeding platform, loaded with bags of bananas.

One by one, they step gingerly onto the platform, to patiently await their turn for bananas -- their breakfast. None of the animals, often depicted as greedy, snatch the food.

And here comes the biggest, a bearded female with her baby clinging tightly to her chest. The younger apes make way for their "senior" who lands on the platform with the grace of an acrobat. Excited tourists rush to take pictures.

The animals are some of the 157 alumni of the Bohorok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center. It was set up in Bukit Lawang to teach once-captive orangutans how to return to the wild, mostly back into the 1,800,000-hectare jungle on the ridges of Gunung Leuser National Park.

There are currently eight apes at the quarantine center being taught basic skills needed to survive in their natural habitat. Another 10 have been let go, but still visit the feeding platform regularly.

"The food is only to keep them from starving while they learn to find their own food in the forest," park ranger Ridwan Bangun said.

"If they stop coming to the feeding platform, it means the rehabilitation program has succeeded," he said.

Since it was set up by the World Wildlife Fund and the Frankfurt Zoological Society in 1973, the rehabilitation center has accepted 210 orangutans from people in North Sumatra and Aceh who had kept them as pets. Others were brought in from lumber camps when their habitat was lost to logging.

The Bohorok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center has been very successful in educating the apes to return to nature after their long days behind bars as pets.

The primate rehabilitation center has become internationally known thanks to a publication by Monica Borner and Regina Frey, the WWF representatives from Switzerland who pioneered the center.

People are allowed to visit for two hours during the morning and afternoon feeding sessions on a wooden platform about one kilometer up from the quarantine.

Afdil, an activist at the Bohorok Sustainable Development Program -- a privately-sponsored project to help local people manage the environment better, said that peak visiting seasons were around May and August, during the school vacations.

The orangutans, especially those in the quarantine center, are certainly a top attraction for tourists.

"I doubt that tourists would be interested in visiting the park if we didn't have orangutans around. I don't think foreign tourists would come if all we offered was just a bath in the gorge," Afdil said.

Martin, an Australian volunteer at the center, however, complained that visitors could hamper the program. The center prohibits physical contact between the apes and visitors in order to cut the animals' dependence on humans and prevent the possible transmission of diseases.

Ecotourism

The rehabilitation center for orangutans is indeed the major attraction out here, where tourism grew very slowly in the first 15 years.

Since the late eighties and early nineties, however, there has been rapid development.

The construction of cottages, restaurants, and food stalls began in the rubber plantation village of Bukit Lawang along the Bohorok river, up to the rehabilitation center, threatening the fragile, clear, river water with degradation.

You are amazed by the "night-life" in this small village. The dim light pouring out of the eateries frames the picture of people sitting and chatting, enjoying the rushing of the river's rapids, smelling the fresh forest breeze. It helps you forget you are actually in a jungle.

The Gunung Leuser National Park is one of the most famous nature conservation forests in the world.

Leuser Ecosystem, as the rich rainforest area is called, is "one of the richest parts of the world in terms of biodiversity," according to Leuser Development Program co-director Mike Griffiths, a scientist who has spent 12 years studying the area he calls an "Indonesian Eden."

Tourist operators in the park, including those in Bukit Lawang, are becoming quite professional in attracting tourists. They organize routine environmentally-friendly events such as jungle trekking, caving, and white-water rafting.

Another excellent tourism activity that has yet to come but is being planned is an "environmental cultural show".

Michel Gilbert from the Bohorok Development Program told The Jakarta Post they have permission from the owner of an unused rubber factory nearby for the purpose.

"We'll try to promote environmental awareness through this kind of activity," Michel said.