During my recent visit to the island, Dr. Marcelo Mazzolli, our big cat expert, and I put most of the finishing touches to what we hope will be our next expedition launch. We were kindly hosted by Wishnu and Febri from our local partner WWF Indonesia.
Febri will be the scientist for the expedition and is looking forward to it all, albeit with some trepidation of being overwhelmed by foreigners 😉
Pekanbaru, our assembly point city, certainly has zero foreigners in it. Marcelo and I were treated like celebrities with frequent requests for photos. The further away from Pekanbaru we travelled, the more frequent they became, especially at the hospitals and medical posts we inspected for our medical umbrella plan. Full of smiling and laughing nurses, they looked like good places to have a twisted ankle treated in. In the field, WWF’s Subayang field station is certainly a beautiful place
as is the expedition study site of Rimbang Baling Wildlife Reserve
and the gibbon wake-up calls in the morning are even better
The biggest change to what was quoted on the website so far is the dates. We have to work around Ramadan, when Febri has to fast during the day and therefore cannot be in full action in the field. Our new prospective dates are 2 – 15 May | 17 – 29 May | 31 May – 12 June || 26 July – 7 August | 9 – 21 August | 23 August – 4 September. These may yet shift by a week or so and we should know the final dates this month. When we do, we will send around the expedition briefing to the waiting list (which now has over 150 people on it). Once this is done, we just need to wait for the final ok from WWF head office in Jakarta and their signature on the dotted line of our collaboration agreement. Once we have this, we will launch the expedition hopefully sometime in June. Once launched (first to the waiting list for a few days before going fully public), places will be awarded on a first-deposit-first-served basis. We cannot accept deposits/reservations until then, but if the experiences of other launches are anything to go by, then we should be able to accommodate everyone on the waiting list on their preferred dates.
Regards
Dr. Matthias Hammer
Executive Director
Update from our from our Sumatran tiger conservation vacation volunteering on your holiday with tigers in Sumatra, Indonesia
Biosphere Expeditions: blogs from the frontline of wildlife conservation and the fight for a more sustainable planet 