In search of big-nosed monkys

2nd July 2008

On the road again
Shortly after returning from India, I was re-packing my gear and heading back to Heathrow, east-bound again, this time to south-east Asia and the forests of the world’s third largest island, Borneo. The focus of my trip was the oddly-faced Nasalis larvatus - the proboscis, or long-nosed monkey - distinctive because of the male’s large, bulbous protruding snout and listed by the IUCN as endnagered, due primarily to continuous habitat loss through deforestation.

Proboscis monkeys are endemic to Borneo’s low elevation mangrove forests and lowland riparian forests and, like the island’s other well-known primate, the Bornean orangutan, they are arboreal, meaning they spend most of their lives in trees, making them difficult to photograph at the best of times. To complicate matters further, I was attempting a unique shot, wanting to photograph a male leaping between trees, directly towards the camera. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Making a plan
At the airport, I met with my guide for the assignment, Cede Prudente. Cede is a well-known photographer in his own right, and a respected travel operator in Malaysian Borneo. We quickly went over the plan for the assignment before heading to camp. The plan was two-fold: initially we were going to set up remote cameras at the Labuk Bay sancturary for proboscis monkeys, before heading deeper into the forest and the Kinabatangan river, an area rich in wildlife and one of the last remaining habitats where proboscis monkeys and orangutans can thrive.

At camp I tested all the electronic equipment before storing it in a room separate from my sleeping quarters. One of the difficulties photographing in the tropics is heat and humidity. Air conditioning makes it comfortable for humans to sleep but taking camera equipment from a cool environment out into the jungle will cause moisture to form on lens elements and inside cameras. To overcome the problem, I had booked a room specially for the equipment, so that it could be stored overnight in a none-air conditioned climate.

Caught in a trap
In the morning we bagan setting up the camera traps. I had identified a position where a group of bachelor males visited regularly. The cameras were fixed to tripods, which were disguised to blend with the natural surroundings. To activate the shutters I was using infra red (IR) remote triggers, which I would fire manually from a distant, concealed position. As these triggers worked via line-of-sight, it was important to test them for accuracy.

Once the camera traps were set it was a question of sitting in place and waiting, normally something I’m happy to do, except here it was 30-degrees in the shade and close to 100% humidity. I have to admit that jungles are my least favourite environment in which to work and, after a few hours I was ready to scream, “I’m not a celebrity ... but GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Around the same time, the group of bachelor males began appearing in the trees around me. I was just going to have to put up with it!

Nikon delivers
For the shot I intended, my new Nikon D3’s were proving a real blessing. The ability to shoot at relatively high ISO values, without having to worry about digital noise, meant that, despite being in the low light of the forest, I could attain a sufficiently fast shutter speed to freeze the motion of the monkeys as they leapt. Knowing when to trigger the shutter came down to my knowledge of the subject and being able to read body language, together with the calculations I’d made for the delay between transmission and receipt of the IR signal.

In touch with the locals

Meting Bin Barapa
I headed for the Kinabatangan river, where I was photographing some more traditional images, as well as searching for the elusive orangutans. It was here that I met and interviewed two generations of oil palm farmers, who explained how their small plantation yielded an income that barely sustained their family. They also told me that they owned a sizeable plot of land on the opposite side of the river bank, traditional forest that was home to orangutan, proboscis monkeys, clouded leopard and other endangered species. The government charged them land tax and, as the land was financially unproductive as it stood, they needed to find a way of making it pay. They wanted to create a wildlife sanctuary but lacked the financial resources to do so. Their only option, they felt, was to expand their oil palm plantation.

What value a tree?
And herein lies the problem for regions such as Malaysia and Indonesia. In themsleves, forests are financially unproductive until you cut them down. If we want to save forest-dwelling species (as well as protect a vital natural resource in our fight against global warming), we need to find a way of enabling the people who live in around forests to earn a decent living without destroying essential natural habitat.

The oil palm debate

Oil palm and the future
Deforestation caused by the growth in oil palm plantations is thought to be one of the principal reasons for the continuing decline in populations of orangutans and proboscis monkeys, as well as many other endnagered species. On the flight between Kuala Lumpur and Sandakan, I met Sarala Aikanathan, Director of Wetlands International - Malaysia. She was heading to the International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference in Kota Kinabalu.

A new outlook?
Although on the side of conservation, her views were refreshingly pragmatic, understanding that Borneo, along with Indonesia and Thailand, needs a basis on which to grow and sustain its national economy, and that demand is increasing exponentialy for the world’s most productive crop. She was confident that recent initiatives drawn up between the major oil palm producers and conservation groups would yield a future where wildlife and people could co-exist in the region.