Part Time Student, Part Time Traveler

I still remember the message from one of  my favorite lecturers at Bogor Agricultural University before I left Indonesia for study abroad, she said "Don't spend your whole time there only for study, there are so many things to learn there apart from university life, go explore and earn something useful while you are there". As a good student I did obey her advice.

I had to be a full time student during the ongoing semesters when I spent my whole time for study, but when it came for semester breaks, I left my desk at university and heading to somewhere else to explore another part of the world, the one and only continent-country in the World, The Australia.

I studied and lived in the Far North Queensland Capital City, to the North of Brisbane and very close to The Great Barrier Reef where the Rainforest meets reefs as it always been advertised every now and then. It is Cairns City, a lovely and warm city where I spent 2 years of struggling yet surviving to finish my master degree.

Two years study there in four semesters, forty eight credit points of study, and more credit for life skills and mastering three kinds of things, Master of Science, Master of Cooking, and Master of Self-Photography. The last one is a bit odd though, but at least I got opportunities to have pictures of my self in famous places such as The Opera House of Sydney, The International well-known Grand Prix Circuit of Philip Island where the smallest penguin lives, The ghost (read: beautiful) city of Canberra, and the Tasmanian Devil's Island, The City of Wheel in Brisbane, even to the death gold city in Chillagoe, and many more.

Scientific committee meeting on LAPAN-IPB Satellite (LISat) 2014

Ditulis oleh M.Irfansyah Lubis dan Yudi Setiawan, Pusat Penelitian Lingkungan Hidup (PPLH)

Pada tanggal 3 Oktober 2014, para pakar Penginderaan Jauh dan Sistem Informasi Geografis (Remote Sensing-Geographical Information System/RS-GIS) IPB yang berasal dari berbagai departemen, fakultas dan pusat penelitian, mengadakan pertemuan di Ruang Sidang Pola, Gedung Andi Hakim Nasoetion Lt. 2, Kampus IPB Darmaga, Bogor. Hadir dalam pertemuan ini peneliti Pusat Teknologi Satelit, Lembaga Antariksa dan Penerbangan Nasional (LAPAN) Indonesia, Wahyudi Hasbi, M.Sc. Pertemuan ini dipimpin oleh Wakil Rektor bidang Riset dan Kerjasama IPB,  Prof.Dr.Ir. Anas Miftah Fauzi, M.Eng serta didukung oleh Direktorat Riset dan Inovasi (DRI) IPB. Adapun tujuan dari pertemuan ini adalah untuk menindak lanjuti program bersama antara LAPAN dan IPB dalam pengembangan LAPAN-IPB Satellite (LISat) yang bertujuan untuk mendukung program ketahanan pangan nasional.

Suasana rapat Scientific Committe LISat, Gedung Andi Hakim Nasotion, Gedung Rektorat IPB

Hunting for conservation

Hunter wannabe

A very contradictive headline indeed, since hunting is always associated with poaching that has been recognised as a wicked problem for wildlife conservation in the world. This challenging issue was being discussed by some conservationist and the governments of Indonesia in a workshop in order to accelerate hunting as part of conservation efforts in Indonesia on September 18th, 2014. This workshop is organised by The Indonesian Wildlife Conservation Foundation (IWCF), Indonesian Ministry of Forestry, and Centre for Environmental Research - Bogor Agricultural University (PPLh-IPB).

To begin with, General Director of Protection Forest and Nature Conservation (PHKA), Ministry of Forestry in the opening of the workshop presented the importance to accelerate hunting for conservation in Indonesia. The appreciation of hunting that has been done since ancient times underlies the spirit to incorporate this activity as part of conservation efforts in Indonesia. As one of mega diversity countries, Indonesia is seen as a prospective country for sport hunting. Even now, in some part of Indonesia, traditional hunting mainly for meat still becomes part of daily activities for people in remote areas.

Chasing River Monsters!!...(From My Daily Journal in Berbak NP, Eastern Sumatra)

For people who like watching wildlife TV programmes, the River Monster is one of the best serial TV programs, especially those who like fishing and adventurous sports.This TV programme is brought by Jeremy Wide, a British television presenter and a book author. This guy travels a lot in search for the most fearsome freshwater monsters, tries to catch it and gathers information about people who were attacked by these killers.

Holding a juvenile of  salt water crocodile

So why does it matter?, well I like watching it and just recently had a field work in one of national parks in Sumatra, a peat swamp and lowland forest, located in North-eastern of Sumatra, Indonesia. This TV series and my trip has similar objective which is to save one of the rarest and endangered species of the freshwater giants from extinction and help people understand the important part of these animals for our ecosystem. In our case, the species focus is The Asian narrow-headed soft shell turtle (Chitra javanensis), one of the largest soft shell turtles in the world and endemic to Indonesia. Moreover, the information about this species is very scarce.

It was on a late summer 2014, from June-July, with a researcher from Alaska Zoo US, we headed to one of the locations in Berbak National Park, Air Hitam Laut (AHL) subsection in the Eastern coast as this site was recorded as one of the habitats of this giant soft-shell turtle. However, based on the local people we interviewed, nobody has seen this species in these locations ever. 

Unfortunately, the distribution about this species is still debated by the scientist due to infrequent  researches about it, so more studies related to it are urgently needed. However, based on limited published information about its habitat, this river giant only exist in clear-water rivers with sandy bottom which is very opposite with the condition in Air Hitam Laut  location that has very black water and muddy bottom. But, due to very limited information worldwide about its habitat, we hopefully found this endangered species or maybe other interesting animals in this kind of habitat. So we just carried out our study in this location for almost two months.

May My Life Be Like A Tortoise

As I walk through life, may my steps be like those of a

tortoise, sure and steady.

No matter what obstacle is placed in his path, he will

eventually find a way round, over or under it.

And if any unthinking person should pick him up and

put him down again facing the opposite way, he will

always turn round, find his original path, and head for his

ultimate goal.

May I be covered like the tortoise with a hard, round,

waterproof shell, to protect me from the knocks and bruises

of life and give me shelter from the storms, and should I ever

fall flat on my back, may a friend always be there to turn me

gently on my feet again.

May my skin be like that of a tortoise, thick and leathery,

so that harsh words spoken in anger will not pierce my

heart.

May my heart be like the legs and claws of a tortoise,

sturdy and strong, and no matter how hard, dry or stony the

ground may be, I shall always be able to dig in it and plant

the seeds of happiness, peace and contentment, and may all

the seeds that I plant in my life grow and flower and bear

wondrous fruits. 

And lastly, may my eyes be like those of the tortoise,

shiny and bright, never looking back at the storm clouds

gathered behind, but always looking ahead to a bright and

shiny future.

Inspired by The British Chelonia Group Newsletter, from the book of Tortoise by Peter Young

Welcome to Berbak National Park, Jambi Province

It was a nice but super hot sunny day, we arrived in Sultan Thaha airport in Jambi, Sumatera around 1.00 pm. The airport is not that big but so crowded with people. We were fully loaded with over baggage and We had to pay for 50 kg extra baggage when we were checked in Soekarno-Hatta airport, around 19,000 IDR per kg which is not bad. We then hired a car to drop us at Hotel Sovia, close to BKSDA office in Jalan Arif Rahman Hakim, Jambi.

We went to Berbak NP office in Jambi which is unfortunately quite far from our hotel. Luckily Medi has friends here who are studying in Jambi university. They drove us to the national park office, 20 minutes from hotel by motor cycle. We arrived at 3.15 pm. At least we still had time for meeting with the head of the national park and several staffs to talk about our project for Turtles Conservation.

Me Vs Wild (Sumatran Tiger)

They are very welcomed and gave us information we need. However, we cannot go to the park because we haven't got the SIMAKSI, an entry permit to conservation areas. So we'll just to wait for the permit to be approved by PHKA (Ministry of Forestry) in Jakarta. But before go to the field, we need to give a presentation about our turtle project in the NP's office and hopefully we will get all the information we need to make a plan for this trip.

Based on the information we gathered during the meeting, we probably go to the park using the speed boat from Jambi to Air hitam village, the last village before the national park. From there we will use another boat to the park and stay in a camp which were built by ZSL for Sumatran Tiger Conservation program. The camp is located in the junction of two rivers that we could use for the turtle survey. These rivers also become the traditional fishing zone for local people. They use big bubus to trap the big fish, and sometime they catch soft shell turtle accidentally inside the bubu (fish trap made by bamboo or rattan), based on the park rangers' report. This is a good information for us, at least there is a good opportunity to catch turtles or soft shell turtles in this national park. But, of course, these rivers also home for salt water crocodile and false gharials crocodile and also Sumatran tiger!!, so we better not to risk our life for these turtles.

In the last meeting, I had a chance to get a picture of me and a dry preservation of Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatraensis) in the Head of Balai TN Berbak's office. The tiger was found dead due the electric fence that local people use to keep away of these big cat from their villages. Sadly, this tiger has to die for the sake of the locals' safety. It might be better if they use unharmed methods to keep the safety both human and the wildlife.

Visiting Chitra-chitra (Asian narrow-headed softshell turtle) in Ragunan zoo, Jakarta

Thanks to the technology, now I am able to wander around Indonesian Capital City. The "Busway" application which is built for android system is really help to look around the Bus' routes and the bus' stops in Jakarta, So I won't lost in Jakarta any more, and maybe you too :).

So, we finally made it to Ragunan zoo on Saturday, June the 7th. It was not so many people in the morning so it was a good time to look for the animals especially reptiles and other interesting animals with not so many people around. We went to the reptiles sanctuary first and we saw several species of reptiles such as reticulated python, king cobra, some varanids, turtles and finally we came across chitra chitra, the one we ought to see in this place.

Chitra-chitra in Ragunan Zoo 

They named it Chitra Indica on the sign in the front of the cage, the name that belong to species that only occurs in Pakistan and India, but the picture on the sign looks like Chitra Javanensis, the "Labi-labi raksasa" from Indonesia based on Tim's examination. However, we cannot examine it closely of what it is since it is inside the cage, but it is huge. We could only see that thing from the glass window, and the chitra just stay still like a rock. We waited for quite sometime but it didn't move an inch. Unfortunately, there is not much information about it at the zoo and there was no zookeeper to ask questions.

We then wandered around at the zoo to see other animals. Tim would like also to see Sumatran tiger and salt water crocodile, as these two dudes will be around in Berbak National Park in South-Eastern Sumatra when we do the turtle survey in the coming weeks.

Generally, this is a good zoo where the place is surrounded by trees and rivers even though they are not in a perfect condition. One thing that needs to be improved is to separate different animals in different places. This is because we saw that some different animals are put in one cage and and they only put one name on it. For instance is the monitor lizard is in one cage with Blue-tongued skink from Australia and also a turtle, and the monitor lizard hast lost its tail for some reason. This is not a good sign as it will confuse the visitor about the species name, and the it will also has impacts for both species since they are maybe clash to each other.