Under the Canopy Chapter 25

 Chapter 25

“When you realize the value of life, you dwell less on what is past and concentrate more on the preservation of the future.”

Dian Fossey

“Plain, Rustic, Basic”

    

Dr. Gunther had described the camp as plain, rustic, and basic.  Those were the adjectives he used.  He emphasized the nature of the challenge; he never once oversold the place. The reality came crashing home to Mark in all its plain, rustic, basic simplicity: this was it.  Mark began a mental inventory of his surroundings. This was home for the next year, or more.  Mark knew that his mentor, who had given the brief introduction the previous evening, had completed his teaching duties for the academic year at the University of Toronto the previous semester and would now dedicate his time to the Fossey program, his true love.

After the orientation the previous evening, Mark and Gunther agreed to meet after breakfast to reacquaint themselves.  Gunther had planned to spend some extra time getting Mark up to speed with more detail on the camp’s history, operations, and future trajectory.  They met at the “mess hut” after breakfast, each carrying a vital tin cup filled with hot dark roast coffee. The morning mist still clung tenaciously to the upper canopy when Mark stepped out of the mess cabin clutching his cup of coffee as a drowning person does a life jacket. The jungle was always awake.  Moist air drifted up from the forest floor, carrying the smell of wet leaves and the sweetness of overripe fruit.  Mark rubbed sleep from his eye, still fatigued from the journey from Canada. He then adjusted the borrowed field vest hanging awkwardly on his shoulders. The orientation had left him overwhelmed with so many names, rules, procedures and warnings from snakes to mosquitoes.  He had momentary doubts about coming to Borneo in the first place.

Near the stone-lined cooking fire stood Mathias Gunther, already dressed for the day in faded Khaki trousers and a weathered green long-sleeved shirt.  He held a dented metal mug in one hand and a sturdy walking stick in the other.  His thick silver hair hung damp against his forehead from the constant humidity.  

“You survived your first night, I see,” Gunther said with a faint smile.

“Barely,” Mark answered. “I think something the size of a dog was scratching at our cabin wall.”

Gunther chuckled softly.  “Only macaques.  Usually.  Had it been a Sun Bear, you would know.”

“That’s comforting.”

Gunther motioned with his walking stick. “Come.  Before the heat becomes unbearable.  I’ll show you the camp properly.”

They began walking slowly along the dirt path that wound between the cabins.  The compound was as small as they had noticed on their arrival. Most of the structures, especially those closer to the water’s edge, were built on stilts above the muddy ground.  Blue tarps covered supplies stacked beneath them. A rusting radio antenna leaned slightly to one side beside the communication hut.

You named this place Camp Fossey,” Mark said, looking around.  “Was Dian Fossey actually here?

“No,” Gunther replied. “Not here in Borneo.” The name is symbolic.  A tribute. Most of the younger volunteers think conservation started in their own generation.  It actually started with strange, stubborn people living alone in forests, somewhat like we are doing presently.”

Mark glanced at him.  “You knew her then?”

Gunther stopped walking for a moment.

“Yes, he said quietly.  I knew her very well.”

They resumed down the trail.

“In 1967,” Gunther began, “she established her research station high in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda. Karisoke. Two crude cabins at first. Mud floors. Leaking roofs. The Mountain gorillas were disappearing even then.  Poachers.  Habitat destruction. Farmers, pushing further into the forest every year.” He gestured toward the jungle surrounding them. “Exactly what is happening here now with the orangutans?”

Mark listened carefully as they passed a rain barrel overflowing from the night’s downpour.

“I was very young,” Gunther continued. Twenty-two at the time.  I arrived, as you and your group did yesterday, believing I was joining some grand scientific expedition.  In truth, it was misery.” He smiled at the memory. “Cold rain.  Volcanic mud up to your ankles.  Food shortages. Dian, a force of nature, terrified most people away within weeks. She had that reputation. She earned it.” 

Gunther laughed under his breath.  “She trusted gorillas more than humans. Frankly, the gorillas were usually more civilized.

They approached the edge of the camp where the jungle pressed close like a green wall.  Gunther used his walking stick to point to a narrow observation platform overlooking the trees. “This is one of several such platforms from which we monitor orangutans who have been recently released, or are about to be released- those that are tentative and don’t wander too far from camp. Animals don’t always reveal their true natures under observation.  They reveal themselves under acceptance, when they have a  measure of comfort and trust.”  

Gunther took a slow sip of his coffee. “Fossey called this process habituation. She lived near her gorillas. Quietly.  Patiently.  She behaved less like a scientist and more like another harmless forest creature.”

Fossey was much like the gorillas in that she, too, was reclusive.  She would sit for hours chewing a stalk of celery.  Sometimes beating her chest with her fists while mimicking their vocalizations. Deep belching calls.”  He demonstrated in his throat.

Mark laughed despite himself.

“You’re joking.”

“I assure you I am not.”

Gunther’s expression remained serious.  “At first, the gorillas watched her from a distance. Suspicious. Then curiosity replaced fear.  Eventually, they allowed her closer. A few feet at a time. Mothers with infants, juveniles as well.”  His voice lowered reverently.  “And once that happened, the world changed.”

“How?”

“She saw them as families rather than beasts.  Rivalries. Affection. Jealousy. Grief. Before Fossey, most people viewed gorillas as savage monsters from adventure stories.  She changed perceptions.”

Mark watched the fading mist drifting through the trees..  “And Jane Goodall?” He asked.

Gunther smiled again. “Ah, yes, Jane.” He nodded thoughtfully.  “Very different personalities. Warm, while Dian was more aloof.  Diplomatic when she needed to be, whereas Dian was a little more confrontational. But their methodologies were similar.  Their love for their primates identical.”

“You met her?”

“Several times. Tanzania. Early seventies.” Gunther shrugged modestly.  “The primate community was small then.  Everyone knew each other.”

He began walking again, slower now as the path curved behind the medical hut.  I mustn’t forget Birutė Galdikas, the third of the female trilogy of primate scientists, Galdikas, who, as you know from your own studies, is the expert on Orangutans.  Each of these ladies, in their own time, made the cover of National Geographic and helped change how the world sees and understands primates, and that is the legacy of this camp, of Fossey.

“Goodall used patience with chimpanzees much the same way Dian did with gorillas.  Through routine.  Through becoming unthreatening.” He glanced toward the canopy. “And that is what we attempt here with orangutans.”

Mark frowned. “Orangutans are solitary.”

Mostly, Gunther agreed, “Which makes our work all the more challenging.  Gorillas live in groups, chimpanzees in communities.  Orangutans disappear into the forest like ghosts. One female we track, Suri, took us nearly eighteen months before she tolerated our presence within fifty meters.”

“Eighteen months?”

“You cannot rush trust. Not with apes. Not with people either.”

For a moment, neither man spoke.

A warm breeze stirred the leaves overhead, releasing droplets from the earlier rain. Somewhere deeper in the jungle came the distant cracking of branches, something large moving through the canopy.

Mark looked toward the sound instinctively.

Gunther noticed.

“You hear that?” He asked quietly?”

Mark nodded.

“That,” Gunther said, “is why we are here.”

The older man’s face softened as he stared into the immense green wilderness.

“Every year, the forest shrinks. Palm plantations. Roads appear. Poachers follow the roads.” His voice hardened slightly. “People always believe extinction will happen gradually.  It does not.  One day soon, the forest will simply fall silent.”

Mark studied him silently. “You really think that could happen?’

Gunther turned slowly toward him. “I watched it nearly happen in Rwanda.”

The jungle noises swelled around them- insects, birds, unseen movement high above- alive for now, but fragile.

Gunther adjusted his walking stick beneath his arm. “Come he said quietly. There is still much for you to see in camp before we begin our studies in the jungle.”

Gunther and Mark walked toward the largest structure of Dayak design, the central lodge, with mosquito screens on many interior walls and a corrugated tin roof that sang during the hard, frequent rains.  Gunther continued his guide duties with his former student. “It is here in this building, the largest amongst the collection of buildings, that the researchers gather to share data, analyze hours of video and written field notes representing hours of observations. It is this central lodge that formed the focal point of where the members of the team come to exchange their stories and anecdotes, of home, console each other when lonely and argue late into the night about potential extinction rates, animal cognition, land ethics, government interventions, and so much more.”

    

Mark continued scanning the Fossey layout. Adjoining was the larger rehab building, a long, open-air hall-like structure with bamboo partitions.  Guther followed Mark’s gaze at the structure. “It’s in this structure where young orangutans, many orphaned, some sick, a few traumatized beyond easy healing, come for healing and recreation.”

Some orangutans swung and climbed it well enough, from ropes and vines fastened from the rafters.  Their names were written in chalk on small slate boards, each with a brief note concerning diet, temperament, training level and progress trajectory.  For healing orangutans and eager students, it was generally a happy place, for different reasons.

    

Mark observed the Fossey property; a few meters down a muddy track, dusty in the dry season, was the infirmary. “ That building,” Mathias pointed out, “ also doubles as a quarantine hut and, on occasion, a birthing chamber.  Foreign graduate students, like the recent three from Germany, often work here under the quiet supervision of Camp manager Lila Watanabe, a veterinarian with a Tokyo diploma and a jungle soul.  Many of the workers here put in many volunteer hours.”

 

Gunther shared with Mark, “We have grant money from various universities, including my own and yours, the University of Toronto, in addition to several zoos, a few philanthropists and public donations.”

“Here’s a bit of trivia for you, so odd in a sense: each time a movie like Every Which Way but Loose, or Any Which Way You Can, featuring Clint Eastwood and Clyde, played by an orangutan, Manis, donations are more generous. Following an international story about orangutans in captivity being abused in a Thai circus, or elsewhere involving a heroic and glorious repatriation to Borneo, also proved helpful in bringing in a rush of donations.  In between celebrity status and crisis, generally people don’t care much about the status of orangutans, endangered species, loss of habitat or even know where Borneo is in the world.”

    

Sadly, Gunther added, “The funding at Fossey is sketchy at the best of times.  The Indonesian government pays lip service to conservation, viewing it as an impediment to progress.  Therefore, the need for researchers and volunteers to constantly move into the camp from various parts of the world was essential to the institution's survival.  With each student comes some grant money, some media attention, if only locally, valuable research and more awareness. I founded this facility, Fossey,  on a wing and a prayer, and it was through my own notoriety, publications and promotional efforts that I can keep this boat afloat, at least so far.

     

Mark noted that around the outskirts of the camp, past the dormitory buildings and the mess hut, paths led to a series of feeding platforms.

Mathias explained that these feeding platforms were stocked daily with fruit and leaves as part of the transition or rewilding process for the guest orangutans.  The platforms allow orangutans to gain greater independence, enabling them to leave the main camp on their own while staying close enough to find the security they need.  At the platforms, food is available because orphaned orangutans lack the skills to find their own food, often dependent on their mothers for up to eight years before being forced out of the nest by their mothers to seek their own jungle independence.”

    

“In terms of research and observation, Gunther said, “further into the jungle are temporary camps about one or two days’ trek outside the main camp perimeter, where researchers can further observe transitioning orangutans.  In some cases, as a young orangutan is ready for self-directed jungle life, away from human contact, navigating the jungle environment with fading traces of dependence, they eventually stray from the more distant camps and may not be seen for days at a time, then come back and stay until one day they are gone to find their own territory and life of solitary, fruit gathering and nest building and hopefully mating and reproduction.”

  Mark knew most of the information from his coursework, but seeing the camp up front, personal and from the mouth of Mathias himself, was an experience no textbook or lecture could match.

    

Later in the day, Mark joined Mathias on the porch of his cabin, as the sun dropped behind the rainforest ridge, a few kilometres distant from the camp.  Sunsets came early when one lived so close to the equator. The heat still clung to the verandah boards like something alive.  Mathias had his cabin designed as a miniature replica of his own cottage in the Muskoka country north of Toronto, where he spent time in retreat on his lake fishing and writing.  On this evening, the crickets started before the parrots finished, and the humid air carried a faint scent of diesel from the generator humming out by the supply shed.

    

Mathias eased back in his bamboo chair, boots up on an overturned crate, his favourite chipped enamel mug sweating beside him.  He had the unhurried posture of a man who had once lived in cities, then rejected everything cities promised and could not deliver.

    

“Back then, Mark, in the decades of the sixties and seventies,” he said, thumb grazing the grey line of his jaw, “no one wanted to hear the word warming, as in global warming. You said it and were ignored, or at best people assumed you were talking about blankets, not the planet, or you were just crazy.”

    

Mark sat opposite his mentor, notebooks closed for once, in this more relaxed, impromptu opportunity to talk with Gunther.  Mark’s voice sounded polite, with a Canadian lilt that sounded almost apologetic when he spoke.  “So you just what…started up a camp?

     

“No,” Mathias grinned.  “I started a nuisance.  Camp Fossey came much later.”

    

A toucan, or Rhinoceros Hornbill, as they are called in Borneo, croaked somewhere in the distance under the canopy, like a saw-blade catching on metal, allowing Mathias a moment to formulate his next thought.

    

Mathias leaned forward, the porch light catching the deep furrows around his piercing, alert eyes.  “In the earlier days, the formative days, you had to be loud.  We faxed politicians, lobbied, sneaked photos from the days of Love Canal, chemical contamination, industrial negligence, nuclear power accidents, like Three Mile Island, the Santa Barbara Oil spills, or the Cuyahoga River fires. One disaster after another. We tried to document it all.  Get justice, or at least some accountability. I begged for grants from people who didn’t know a rainforest from a potted fern.  Awareness was the major battle long before conservation was even a thing. It was frustrating; corporations do not take kindly to accountability and environmental responsibility.  They generally do what they want and are usually sanctioned by their boards, with government approval.  All very demoralizing.  I didn’t know anymore if I was an anthropologist or an environmental activist.  The lines had blurred. These days, with age or senility, I am more focused.  Camp Fossey became the true focus.  Here, I can combine primate studies, habitat depletion, and the effects on Indigenous lifestyles. I have my porch, my enamel mug and Cîvasse Regal on a quiet night.” He paused, taking a long indulgent swig from his mug.

    

“In terms of Camp Fossey, as simple and crude as it first appears, and I suppose actually is. I annoyed everyone rich enough to feel guilty,” he said, laughing quietly. “Foundations, universities, trust funds.  I speak at conferences, tell stories and make corporate boards squirm until they give.  You never ask them directly to save the world.  You ask them to join the story, be part of the narrative of saving it.  They like being part of positive stories.  It's all about marketing.

   

  Mark wrote that sentence down in his head; he could feel it settling there, sticky and important.  The night deepened.  A breeze moved through the porch posts, rattling the tarps rolled above.

    

“There’s a philosophy to this,” Mathias continued, lowering his voice, almost confessional.  “We are not educating people on the environment.  Everyone knows the environment is collapsing.  What they don’t know is where hope factors into the disaster. There’s a narrow line between despair and momentum.  You have to teach both. A subtle message is usually best, but even I will admit sometimes stronger measures are needed.”

     Mark swallowed.  “Do you think it’s winnable?  This…ecological war?”

     Mathias took a long sip of his ”tea.” He didn’t answer at first.

     “Quite frankly, Mark, I think large parts of it have already been lost,” he said softly.  “Species are gone forever.  Glaciers that won’t come back.  Children will grow up never seeing a coral reef except in archival footage.  This is hopelessness.”

    

Mark felt a hollow pressure in his stomach, wondering how this affected his time at Camp Fossey and his own career path, now in its formative stages.

     “But,” Mathias said, leaning forward again, eyes sharpening with that stubborn spark, “everything that remains is hope.  Forests are still standing.  Rivers are not poisoned.  Indigenous communities are still fighting.  And every person who shows up, like you, is proof of that.”

    

Mark glanced towards the camp perimeter, where the jungle began.  Something moved out there, a rustling, urgent, alive.

     “You’re grooming me for something?” He asked quietly.  They had circled around this topic, but Mathias had been cryptic.

     Mathias nodded once.  “I won’t be running Camp Fossey forever.  I’m passing operational control soon.  To a rising star, someone with grit, someone who doesn’t bore through their empathy and leave only cynicism.”

     Marked blinked.  “I hope I’m on the short list.”

     Mathias smiled in that infuriating, knowing way.  “Your stay here, Mr. Penner, is but an audition.  Make no mistake, the world needs leaders, not armchair activists.  Someone who can stand in front of cameras, summon media attention, raise funds, find donors and say the truth without flinching.”

     

Mark let the words settle.  He suddenly felt the weight of the porch, the camp, the forest.  It felt heavier than any other responsibility in his life.  He thought of his tidy little Mennonite life back home, of his crowded university office, the cafes, the winter hockey games and all of a sudden those things seemed so small.

    

Mathias tapped his mug on the rail. “Mark, there will be days that you feel unstoppable,” he said.  “And days you feel stupid and naive and utterly pointless.  That’s the real war.  Not against corporations or carbon.  Against giving up.”

     Mark finally smiled, uncertain, but real.  “You think I’m ready for that?”

     “No one is ever ready,” Mathias said, standing, stretching out his weathered frame.  “Some people just decide to begin anyway.”

    

For all its rustic charm, Fossey bristled with quiet urgency.  It was a place built on borrowed time, holding the ever-changing line against extinction, encroachment and the ever-increasing advance of heavy, destructive equipment owned by self-absorbed men who had never looked into the orangutan’s eyes or seen the intelligence behind them.

    

Each morning, while Gunther was in residence, he would sit sedately on the veranda of his private cabin, sipping his “tea” from a dented camping mug, watching the morning mist dissipate over the canopy ceiling as if waiting for the forest itself to speak.