produced and directed by Sarah Cunliffe
read this excerpt of Willie Smits' diary August 2-11, 1998 written during the making of the BBC documentary.
Then we hear from a child that nearby there is another orangutan. We rush over and break open another wooden crate to find a tiny two year old female orangutan baby that we decide to name harapan, meaning hope, and it is instantly adopted by the BBC presenter. Again nobody is home and we will have to come back to follow up on this one as well. Both these two babies have most likely been caught when their mothers were isolated in trees in the fields of these people. Probably the orangutan was raiding their garden and killed with machetes. The babies taken to the house. The orangutans' habitat is gone, only plantation trees remain and the drought and fires have killed almost all of them so the orangutans desperately go to the last green spots, being the fields of the transmigrants.
After the house of the Dayak women we move on past a catholic church to another house. Only the children are at the house. Again on a similar platform I find a very small wooden crate with a miserable looking crying little baby orangutan. The baby has hardly any strength left and I lift him without problems from the cage we have broken to release him. The hair is covered with excrements, the eyes are deep in the sockets and the skin when held between the fingers does not return to its original shape. This baby, completely dehydrated, is at the verge of dying. It has many lesions on the fingers of its hands and feet. Swollen patches in the skin show wrigling worms just underneath. The children just look on and don't understand why we are upset. Docter Amir immediately gives a parasite and vitamin shot and we give the baby some Oralit. It greedily sucks the nipple of the bottle. There is still hope. We call the little one Berani, meaning the brave one. He will need to be brave if he is to survive. There is a hornbill skull on the wall. Why? The bird came during the fires and ate the fruits of the Dayaks so they ate the bird. The orangutan, same story.
Click here to read the whole story
Click here to help the orangutans
Links to Orangutans
BOS The Balikpapan Orangutan Society You've seen The Orang-utan Rescue (BBC), now read Smits' diary
Call for Help Orangutan Foundation International The Balikpapan Orangutan Society USA