Earth Week 2009: A Positive Role Model

Since both Earth Day and Arbor Day are this week, it’s a per­fect excuse to speak on some impor­tant “green” topics.

In the fol­low­ing video, Willie Smits talks about his quest to help the orang­utan after find­ing one dying in the mar­ket in Bor­neo.  Early on in the talk, he tells how there are almost 1000 babies at his cen­ters, and then scolds the crowd for their applause.  He reminds us how awful it is that there’s even a need for these cen­ters.  He dis­cusses the dev­as­tated habi­tats of the orangs and the process of refor­est­ing the area.  Instead of hav­ing a sin­gle­minded approach, the cul­tures and eco­nom­ics of the peo­ple of the region had to be inte­grated into the whole plan.  By focus­ing on the peo­ple, instead of dis­re­gard­ing them, real change was pos­si­ble. The efforts have regen­er­ated a rain­for­est, renewed an econ­omy, changed the tem­per­a­ture and entire cli­mate of the region.

In the com­ments on the video, Willie Smits answers ques­tions about how this was all possible:

An other issue that was brought up was how was this project financed and how much did it cost. It was financed from dona­tions and adop­tion of square meters through the Bor­neo Orang­utan Sur­vival Foun­da­tion. Total costs over the last 7 years for the almost 5000 acres have amounted to some 2.5 Mil­lion Euro. This included buy­ing the land. This land was actu­ally still expen­sive due to its prox­im­ity to an eco­nom­i­cally impor­tant oil city. So the model is quite fea­si­ble, but does take well edu­cated peo­ple to execute.

How’s that for a reminder that we’ve all got a part to play?   The video is 20 min­utes, so save a time when you can really relax and watch it.  It’s amaz­ing to watch the satel­lite imagery of the area he’s dis­cussing, and how it changes from a stripped yel­low noth­ing to thick ver­dant for­est so quickly.  It’s a great mes­sage of hope, and I was so excited to hear some­thing so pos­i­tive to start out the week!

I am still plan­ning to limit my screen time this upcom­ing week, even though I’m really enjoy­ing the TED videos. I listed the wrong dates.  TV Turnoff Week starts tomor­row and runs through the 26th.