The more I talk to these incredible people working for our planet the more it’s clear that the common denominator is “quiet resilient determination”. Many of the changemakers in these posts have done the quiet work for decades before the internet sprinted forward the capacity to reach and accumulate masses, and even when that happened, they stayed in hiding, focused on their work, dedicated the minutia of the effort and focus of the endeavor, undistracted by the surroundings.
Marc Ancrenaz, co-founder of Hutan is one of these quiet hustlers whose dedication to wildlife protection has taken him from France, where he accidentally studied veterinary as an entry point, to then move around the world, from Africa with the Gorillas, to Saudia Arabia to protect the Oryx and then Borneo working with Orangutans and Elephants and where 30 years later he is still as committed and dedicated as the day he started.
“Conservation was not really something understood when I started,” he said, “and it’s a complex multi-layered field where wildlife and people intersect competing for space and resources and often the work is about mitigating the conflicts that stem from the competition and finding solutions that while appeasing the people don’t threaten the biodiversity”.
“Conservation starts at home by not killing the spider on the wall”
Marc Acrenaz
Marc has been working closely with communities, government, and animals first researching, and trying to bring a scientific data-based analysis of the status of biodiversity in Borneo. Over time the work evolved, and the science and research are necessary, but it moves at a different speed from politics and policies, this is possibly the biggest challenge in conservation: slow-paced work that has to keep up with fast-paced politics.
The challenges have not been a setback for his work or his ambitions to make a real impact and in fact, if anything they have been the motivation needed to become more creative in finding solutions. “What does it mean to do conservation in Borneo with Orangutans and elephants?” I asked him, and after a little laugh, he said “That’s a very good question. First, we always say that Conservation without money is just Conversation, we needed funds to run our programs and it was a struggle at the beginning trying to do something that the community did not understand nor value. Orangutans were seen as pests, as they compete for similar resources, they love the Durian fruit as much as the villagers, only they can gorge on the production of an entire plantation in a matter of hours, and that is the beginning of a potential conflict. We have learned of the resilience of Orangutans and their ability to adapt to the changing environment that left them with fewer areas available to them. The mitigation of the conflict was with the villagers, creating opportunities for them to be involved in conservation making a living, through eco-tourism and other opportunities that have elevated their pride for being recognized as protectors of the land”.
Science is a big part of conservation, he stressed again, when the work started 30 years ago the government believed that the total population of Orangutans in the Sabah region was 600 units, and only thanks to a survey that involved combing the area by aircraft, it was instead confirmed that the population amounted to 11,000, a massive difference that back then was enough to stop the government from taking the land for farming allocations. It was instead immediately protected. They were making their assumption on old scientific data, the only one available at that point, so it’s extremely important to always stay current, to allocate funds to maintain a constant stream of fresh data available.
That specific experience and a few decades of frustration were the inspiration for Marc to start another initiative called Borneo Futures a collective of scientists from all over the world dedicated and committed to keeping the science relevant and the data available so that the findings may reach politicians at the right time to be considered for important decision making.
But why is it so difficult to do something as simple as protecting this planet?
We talked at length about the disconnection that exists between our daily lives and the environment we live in. The same well-intentioned individual who wants to get involved with conservation in a foreign and far land is also the person who will scream and squash a spider, kill a mouse, set fire to a beehive, and other acts that are perceived as just necessary to protect our aspirational living.
“Conservation starts at home” Marc stressed, why should it be easier for a villager to put up with an elephant destroying a sacred ground or an orangutan eating a durian fruit supply, when the average person cannot put up with a harmless spider living in a home, playing a role in our ecosystem just as much as the next big animal is.
We need to ask ourselves where our compassion is and where is our curiosity for nature, instead of squashing and trapping and killing and disposing of. Until we recover our connection to the elements around us, in our primary location, there is no hope of doing that in a faraway jungle.
