‘Saving orangutans will preserve humanity — women sustain life and they understand this’

Birute Galdikas is an icon in the conservation of orangutans. A primatologist who has worked in

Indonesia

since the 1970s, and founder of the

Orangutan Foundation International

(OFI), Galdikas is among the pioneering ‘

Trimates

’, which includes scientists Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. Galdikas spoke to Srijana Mitra Das at Times Evoke about what drew her to the world of orangutans, why this amazing world is vanishing — and how women can help:

What inspired you to study primates?
Well, as a child, I was very curious. I wondered where we came from and who our predecessors were. We lived in To-ronto then and had a large backyard. This was 70 years ago and there wasn’t much light pollution. I’d lie in our backyard, gaze up at the stars and wonder — who are we? As I grew older, I realised we are all descended from primates. My interest kept growing.

THIS WAS ONCE HOME: The destruction of their rainforests has left orangutans with little natural habitat to survive in (Picture courtesy: Getty Images)

As you became a scientist, did you experience gender discrimination?
There was massive gender discrimination in my university. Over 50%

anthropology

graduate students were women and they got the best marks — but all the professors were male. Most teaching assistants were men. It was an informal but strong system of discrimination. I was fortunate to find a mentor, Lou-is Leakey, who was very influential. I also won a fellowship. Perhaps this came from the fact that no one understood ‘Birute Galdikas’ was a female name. Even today, I get letters addressed to ‘Mr Galdikas’. But the fact was, for a woman to succeed, you had to be not only as good as everybody else — you had to be much better. I overcame gender discrimination because I found a great mentor who believed in me. I also had a strong role model in Jane Goodall. Women do wonders when they mentor and inspire other women.

‘The Trimates’ then became icons. Did an underlying philosophy unite you?

Our

curiosity

and passion united us. We were not interested in getting tenured positions in the West. We had intense curiosity about the world, and a passion for the primates we studied. We truly love these beings. We also became deeply involved in their conservation. I’ve been emphasising for 50 years now — if you save orangutans, you save humankind because you save the tropical rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra. These are crucial for us to breathe.



What were some of your path-breaking scientific discoveries about orangutans?

My work is longitudinal — I’ve been amassing life histories of orangutans. When I first went into the wild, we didn’t even know what orangutans ate. I established that they were mostly frugivores or fruit-eaters, they were semi-solitary but the females were gregarious. Orangutans also understand complex social linkages. I’ve seen two adult females living far apart meet and hold hands — having observed them for decades, I knew they were mother and daughter. And they recognised the relationship too. When orangutans meet, they recognise their mother, their siblings, their cousins. They are incredibly smart.

Why are orangutans facing a crisis of extinction now?

The loss of their habitat is a leading cause. Millions and millions of hectares of tropical rainforests have been demolished by companies cutting and burning down trees to cultivate palm oil. Some claim that they no longer do this, but even if you’ve stopped cutting rainforests now, where are the orangutans?

Birute Galdikas is an icon in the conservation of orangutans.



Where are the birds? Where are the trees? They’re gone with the wind, never to return — unless you start rewilding.

I’ve explained this to palm oil concessionaries whose response was, well, then we won’t have profits. When I spoke to the officials of a palm oil corporation about simply expanding a 50-metre strip of forest to 500 metres, they were shocked. We’ll go bankrupt, they said. This is a multi-billion-dollar company with half a million hectares under palm oil. But this is how overwhelming the profit motive is.

We need to reform the world economic system. It drives politics at the highest levels, and behaviour at ground level. Last year, we found a 10-year-old

orangutan

whose back had been slashed by palm oil workers. We couldn’t save him. I’ve seen so many orangutans killed simply because humans wanted to take over their forests. Nothing gives us the right to do this.



What are some of the conservation efforts you’ve taken up?

We practice deep conservation — we buy land and replant forests. We patrol national parks. We’ve educated over 40,000 children at 200 schools about orangutans and rainforests. We’ve trained palm oil field managers about orangutans. They call us to translocate orangutans they find to a safe forest — but the safe forests are now vanishing.

What would you say to young people interested in conservation — and specially to women — now?

I would say, field conservation is one option, but enter politics and corporations too. Unless the priorities of governments and corporations change, the world will not survive. We are losing species every day — from insects to the polar bear or the rhino, species are barely hanging on. Please try to change the socio-economic structure of the world. I believe women can do this — women grow more radical with time. They have children, they nurture life and they see what future generations will go through, unless we act now.

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