Green Team, Kalimantan, 2018

Orangutan & Forest Conservation and Local Eduction

In March 2018 Violet joined Arbain, the founder of the Green Team. They are a very unique team of 33 locals who have come together to help care for the forest and environment . They have spent most of their lives in the deep jungle and river of Borneo. They grew up in the fields as wildlife and culture tour guides, and are supported by their family’s deep knowledge and understanding of the area. The profit made from their tourism buisiness goes directly towards purchasing land and helping spread education through the local community about the impact of deforestation.

 

In Tanjung Puting National Park an area within the Green Team’s care, there is a small population of wild orangutans that are at threat from deforestation making way for loggers and Palm Oil plantations. Violet was invited to spend a magical few days aboard a riverboat searching for wild orangutans, probiscus monkeys and crocodiles living in the rainforest. She spent time with the rescued orangutans at the famous Camp Leaky where they had been brought to the safety of the park and were given the choice to be fed once per day to supplement their diet.

 

Violet accompanied Arbain to local villages that lie across the river from the park. As she stepped off the boat and traversed beyond the tourist sightline deeper into the rainforest, Violet recalls how the landscape swiftly disfigures into a vast expanse of deforested wasteland.  This truth lay just out of sight of the many tourists who visit the park each year. The villagers invited Violet into their homes and sadly shared stories of Palm Oil companies buying them generators and motorbikes in exchange for buying their land. Land that would be turned into palm oil plantations.

 

The wonderful women of the village sat with Violet for hours and discussed natural materials that she could used to recreate the colour of orangutan fur. Together they grated and boiled yellow root to make natural paint that can easily pass for the orange-brown tang of an Orangutan.

A donation will be made to Arbain’s Green Team from a percentage of proceeds from the sale of original artwork and a continual donation from sale of each limited edition print will also be made.