Professional Photography Expeditions in Asia

Wild Borneo talk @ National Geographic Store – 26 Aug 2011

Spotlight September 1st, 2011 by C.S.Ling

Ling and Ethan shared their amazing photos and experience in Borneo at the National Geographic Store (Singapore). Read on to view the slideshow from the Wild Borneo talk.

Photos at the talk are taken by Jervis Mun

It’s been a busy week for Ethan and myself as we prepare for the Wild Borneo talk, launch of the Life List Chase website and namecards (printed on sugarcane waste paper) and poster (printed on FSC-certified paper). We’ll talk more about environmental friendly papers in the upcoming week…

From the world’s smallest elephants – the Borneo Pygmy Elephants; to a colorful variety of rare species of hornbills that even the local villagers seldom witness. Borneo is a treasure trove of endemic and endangered wildlife waiting to be discovered and appreciated. But there is one very special and iconic endangered species that has always stayed close to our hearts. The one and only great ape of Asia, the Orangutans.

I have been to different parts of Borneo on 10 different occasions for the past 5 years hoping to see and photograph a mother and child orangutan in the wild. Orangutan sightings are few as they are solitary animals; live high up on the tree for most of their lives; and the only time you will see a family of orangutans is that of a mother and her baby. But due to loss of natural habitat and illegal wildlife pet trade (mother is killed, baby sold as pets). The heartwarming scene of a mother and child orangutan in the wild seems like a far off dream.

That’s when Ethan and I decided to go on a journey to understand the problems that have caused the endangerment of the orangutans and shed light on their plight of the orangutan orphans. We spent many months negotiating for access to this protected area, preparation for the story and photo shoot, on top of juggling between our individual full time jobs. In Sept 2010, we are finally on the plane flying over the land of the orangutans. Excited beyond tears and wondering what the first encounter with the orangutans will be like…

Here is one of the presentation we did at the Wild Borneo talk. For the full story, do stay tune and join us for our upcoming talk. In the meantime, please share this article and slideshow with your friends and family!

We really enjoyed speaking about our photography adventures in Borneo at the National Geographic Store and sharing close to 100 photos, some never before seen in the To:MOM exhibition. We esp love the many great questions from the floor and the one-to-one chats after the talk. Thank you all for coming and we hope we’ve inspired you in some ways to get out there this weekend to capture the beauty of Nature through the lens!

For the many individuals and families whom we have the pleasure of chatting with after that talk, please continue to keep in touch with us here and hope we will meet again soon for meaningful collaborations!

Saving the orangutan orphans Part 1

Monday Muse August 29th, 2011 by C.S.Ling

Please visit http://orangutan.or.id to learn how you can help give a brighter future to the 612 orangutan orphans at BOSF Nyaru Menteng.

As the world turns their focus to the causes and effects of climate change, deforestation, mono-culture of oil palm plantation and poaching; one often neglect the immediate victim of this chaos – the orangutan orphans. For many of these innocent young ones, their nightmares begin when they were just a few months old.

Witnessing their mothers murdered right before their own eyes; they were then forced apart from their dead mothers and thrown into cages to be sold in illegal wildlife trade. Within a short span of less than a day, these young orangutan orphans experienced the traumatic turnover in their destiny, where their home and only kin were being robbed away from them by another primitive species, our fellow human kind.

Unfortunately, for every orangutan orphans that were eventually saved, many more died as a result of injury from falling to the forest floor when their mother was shot; from contracting contagious diseases from humans; or from succumbing to the poor conditions in which they are often kept following their capture.

Despite the tens of thousands of the orangutans were killed over the past ten years, only 612 fortunate orangutan orphans were rescued and found refuge at BOSF Nyaru Menteng, an Orangutan Rehabilitation and Reintroduction Center situated outside Palangka Raya, the capital of Central Kalimantan. Many of them were confiscated from nearby villages or from illegal wildlife traders who smuggled the orangutans overseas.

In the wild, orangutans are solitary by nature and a baby spends its first 7-8 years with its mother. During these delicate years, their mothers teach them the ways of the wild and defend their home. Without their mothers at this young age, they have no chance to survive in the wild. At the sanctuary, the young orangutan orphans are given round-the-clock supervision by female caretakers, who serve as surrogate mothers. This close attention is required due to vulnerability of these young orangutans, whom like human babies, often wake up in the middle of the night for milk. Surrogate mothers will then prepare the milk formula that closely resembles their orangutan mother’s milk and feed them with a bottle..

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To be continued…