An appeal from Dr. Willie Smits: Sponsors needed
Dear Friends of BOS,
Greetings from Samboja Lestari! Every time I come here this new forest gives as much energy back as BOS has put in it. So green, so lush, so thriving with life. We are also very happy that slowly more people hear about the Samboja Lodge and take up the opportunity to visit us and stay and work with us. Through them and our friends around the world we hope that we can get support for some urgent needs for more facilities for the increasing number of orangutans in Samboja Lestari and I wonder if some of you could help us.
First of all we have moved the orangutan baby playground materials from the old location in Wanariset to Samboja Lestari and they love it. But for the smallest ones we do not yet have a baby-house where they can spend the night, so they still mostly have to stay with our babysitters at home, which is not an ideal situation. We have made a design for a small facility that can sleep 25 orangutan babies and has facilities for round the clock care for the smallest inhabitants of Samboja Lestari. The building with cages, kitchen, bathroom, medical care room and small shed would be built at a stone throw distance from the playground and the play forest for the smallest ones and connected by a concrete path to the orangutan clinic at a mere 100 meters away. This facility, including the electrical wiring and plumbing will cost about 215 Million Rupiah (approx. 24,500 USD; 18,200 EUR).
We also have a growing number of orangutans that cannot be released yet which we would like to get out of the (spacious) cages on islands. Next year we hope to start the construction of a big dam in Samboja Lestari for the water project which will create several islands, but for now we would like to add one more island of almost a hectare beneath the ecolodge location. It is our intention to build this island by digging a new waterway that will create an island bordering islands 1, 2 and 3 to the south. The digging we hope to do by hand and with volunteers visiting the Samboja Lodge. On the new island we will construct many enrichment and climbing facilities for the orangutans, plant lots of interesting plants and trees and create some visual barriers to enhance the surprise effects for the orangutans. The work again we hope will all be done by volunteers but we will need a big quantity of materials like rocks, sand, gravel and concrete for the sides of the island and the landside part, but also things like thick ship ropes, rubber nets, concrete shelters, swinging beams, remote controlled boxes, some digging and soil moving equipment, plants, etc. Our preliminary calculation (it will partly depend upon the creativity of the volunteers in inventing interesting options for the future orangutan inhabitants) is that it will cost about 175 Million Rupiah in materials only to construct (approx. 20,000 USD; 14,800 EUR). The sponsor will be given the right to name the new island!
If there are interested persons or parties or if you know someone that might be interested we would love to hear from you. Of course you will get full reports on the projects and the expenditures and we hope you will come to open the facilities yourself.
Very warm wishes from a growing Samboja.
Dr.Ir. Willie Smits
Samboja Lestari, 19-5-2007
