Willie Smits
Encyclopedia
Willie Smits is a trained forester, a microbiologist
Microbiology
Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...

, conservationist
Conservationist
Conservationists are proponents or advocates of conservation. They advocate for the protection of all the species in an ecosystem with a strong focus on the natural environment...

, animal rights activist and social entrepreneur
Social entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship is the work of social entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve social change . While a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a...

. He has lived in Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

 since 1985 and is an Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

n citizen.

While working as a forest researcher in East Kalimantan
East Kalimantan
East Kalimantan is the second largest Indonesian province, located on the Kalimantan region on the east of Borneo island. The resource-rich province has two major cities, Samarinda and Balikpapan...

, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 in 1989, Smits encountered a baby orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

 in a cage in a market, and later returned to find it abandoned on a rubbish heap. This was a turning-point in his career: taking the orangutan home, he nurtured it back to health. He was soon given other orangutans to look after, and the work of rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing orangutans into the wild developed into what was to become the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
Borneo Orangutan Survival
The Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation is an Indonesian non-profit NGO founded by Dr Willie Smits in 1991 and dedicated to the conservation of the endangered Bornean Orangutan and its habitat through the involvement of local people...

. For over twenty years Smits has worked for the survival of this threatened species
Threatened species
Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...

 of ape, during which time his work has also broadened out into the related areas of generating sustainable farming, reforestation and remote monitoring of forests. He travels widely, raising awareness of the issues surrounding deforestation in Borneo
Deforestation in Borneo
Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered with dense rainforests, but along with its tropical lowland and highland forests, there has been extensive deforestation in the past sixty years. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of...

 and the plight of the orangutan, also showing how it has been possible on a relatively small scale to reverse the great damage that is being done to the orangutan and its environment. He became a senior advisor to the Ministry of Forests in Indonesia and has been knighted in the Netherlands.

Training

Smits took a degree in tropical forestry
Forestry
Forestry is the interdisciplinary profession embracing the science, art, and craft of creating, managing, using, and conserving forests and associated resources in a sustainable manner to meet desired goals, needs, and values for human benefit. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands...

 and soil science
Soil science
Soil science is the study of soil as a natural resource on the surface of the earth including soil formation, classification and mapping; physical, chemical, biological, and fertility properties of soils; and these properties in relation to the use and management of soils.Sometimes terms which...

 at the Agricultural University of Wageningen (The Netherlands). He did his doctoral thesis studies and subsequent research in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. He graduated in Wageningen on a thesis on the symbiosis
Symbiosis
Symbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...

 between mycorrhiza
Mycorrhiza
A mycorrhiza is a symbiotic association between a fungus and the roots of a vascular plant....

s and the roots of Dipterocarpaceae
Dipterocarpaceae
Dipterocarpaceae is a family of 17 genera and approximately 500 species of mainly tropical lowland rainforest trees. The family name, from the type genus Dipterocarpus, is derived from Greek and refers to the two-winged fruit...

 tropical rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...

s.

Wanariset Research Station

From 1985 Smits worked on the Wanariset tropical forest research station near Balikpapan
Balikpapan
Balikpapan is a seaport city on the eastern coast of the island of Borneo, Indonesia, in the East Kalimantan province, a resource-rich region well known for its timber, mining, and petroleum export products. Two harbors, Semayang and Kariangau , and the Sepinggan International Airport are the main...

 in the Indonesian Province of East Kalimantan. In the early 90s he was team leader of the Tropenbos Kalimantan Project Indonesia, an international partnership between the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and Tropenbos Foundation.

Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation

In 1991 Smits founded what was soon to become the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS), in Kalimantan
Kalimantan
In English, the term Kalimantan refers to the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo, while in Indonesian, the term "Kalimantan" refers to the whole island of Borneo....

 Indonesian Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....

), the world's largest organization for the protection of the endangered
Endangered species
An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

 Bornean orangutans
Bornean Orangutan
The Bornean orangutan, Pongo pygmaeus, is a species of orangutan native to the island of Borneo. Together with the slightly smaller Sumatran orangutan, it belongs to the only genus of great apes native to Asia....

. Two years before, Smits had had his first encounter with an orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...

 in the market. It was a life-changing event and Smits often retells the story:
He nursed her back to health and named her Uce for the laboured sound she made while gasping for breath. A few weeks later he was given another sick orangutan to look after, which he named Dodoy.
With the help of thousands of schoolchildren in Balikpapan
Balikpapan
Balikpapan is a seaport city on the eastern coast of the island of Borneo, Indonesia, in the East Kalimantan province, a resource-rich region well known for its timber, mining, and petroleum export products. Two harbors, Semayang and Kariangau , and the Sepinggan International Airport are the main...

 contributing small amounts of money, Smits was able to set up what became the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation to rehabilitate orphaned and misused orangutans and return them to a safe place in the wild. Wanariset became home to hundreds of confiscated orangutans, rescued from illegal animal smuggling
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...

, kept as pets or exploited in other ways.

The Dutch orangutan-scientist Herman Rijksen recalls Smits creating the facility: "In no time he set up the most fantastic oversized quarantine facility, better than any hospital in the whole area, because that's typical of Willie. He wants to do it very, very good."

Smits quickly saw that protecting orangutans in their habitat not only benefits orangutans but also the environment, biological diversity, the poor in Borneo and all the world’s people. The activities of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation expanded from rescuing, rehabiliting and releasing orangutans to monitoring, conserving and rebuilding rainforest, along with the social engagement that made this sustainable. Smits also took on an increasing campaigning and advocacy role, to make the plight of the orangutan and its habitat more widely known, along with the message that something could - and was - being done.

Samboja Lestari

1°2′44"S 116°59′15"E
In 2001, BOS started purchasing land near Wanariset. The 2000 hectare (5000 acres) area it acquired had been deforested
Deforestation in Borneo
Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered with dense rainforests, but along with its tropical lowland and highland forests, there has been extensive deforestation in the past sixty years. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of...

 by mechanical logging, drought and severe fires and was covered in alang-alang grass (Imperata cylindrica). The aim was to restore the rainforest
Rainforest
Rainforests are forests characterized by high rainfall, with definitions based on a minimum normal annual rainfall of 1750-2000 mm...

 and provide a safe haven for rehabilitated orangutans while at the same time providing a source of income for local people. The name Samboja Lestari roughly translates as the "everlasting conservation of Samboja". Reforestation
Reforestation
Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests and woodlands that have been depleted, usually through deforestation....

 and rehabilitation is the core of the project, with hundreds of indigenous species planted. By the middle of 2006 more than 740 different tree species had been planted.

The Orangutan Reintroduction Project at Wanariset was moved to Samboja Lestari. "Forest Schools" were established, areas that provide natural, educational playgrounds for the orangutans in which to learn forest skills. Here the orangutans roam freely but under supervision and are returned to sleeping cages for the night. "Orangutan islands" were created where the orangutans and other wildlife that cannot return to the wild are nevertheless able to live in almost completely natural conditions.

At his 2009 TED talk Smits claimed there had been a substantial increase in cloud cover and 30% more rainfall due to the reforestation at Samboja Lestari.

To finance the nature reserve, BOS created a system of "land-purchasing", a "Create Rainforest" initiative where sybolically adopt square metres of rainforest. Donors are able to view and follow the progress of their "purchase" in the project area with Google Earth
Google Earth
Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite...

 satellite images from 2002 and 2007 with additional information overlaid.

Sintang Emergency Orangutan Rescue Project

In 2010 Willlie Smits, working with Orangutan Outreach, the Centre for Orangutan Protection, and the Sintang-based local Kobus Foundation began orangutan rescue operations in Sintang, West Kalimantan
West Kalimantan
West Kalimantan is a province of Indonesia. It is one of four Indonesian provinces in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Its capital city Pontianak is located right on the Equator....

. Orangutan Outreach is working with award-winning Australian documentary filmmaker Cathy Henkel (The Burning Season
The Burning Season (2008 film)
The Burning Season is a documentary about the burning of rainforests in Indonesia which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. The main characters featured in the film are: Dorjee Sun from Australia; Achmadi, a small-scale palm oil farmer from Jambi province in Indonesia; and Lone Drøscher...

), Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

, TakingITGlobal
TakingITGlobal
TakingITGlobal, which is also known as TIG, is a charitable non-governmental organization focusing on global issues by promoting awareness and engagement among global youth. It was founded in 1999 in Toronto, Canada by Jennifer Corriero and Michael Furdyk, who are the Executive Director and...

 and young activists around the world on a "DeforestACTION" campaign, aiming to develop a new 8,000 hectare reforestation project to be called Sintang Lestari.

Masarang Foundation

Smits is one of the founders of, and the chairman of the Masarang Foundation
Masarang Foundation
Masarang Foundation , or Yayasan Masarang in Indonesian language, is an Indonesian non-profit organization. One of its programs, The Masarang Palm Sugar Factory, succeeded as one of the finalists of The World Challenge in 2007 .-History:...

, which raises money and awareness to restore habitat forests around the world and to empower local people. In 2007, Masarang opened a palm sugar
Palm sugar
Palm sugar was originally made from the sugary sap of the Palmyra palm, the date palm or sugar date palm . Now it is also made from the sap of the sago, arenga pinnata and coconut palms, and may be sold as "arenga sugar" or "coconut sugar".-Description:It is quickly gaining popularity in the...

 factory that uses thermal energy to turn the juice tapped daily from sugar palms
Arenga pinnata
Arenga pinnata is an economically important feather palm native to tropical Asia, from eastern India east to Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines in the east...

 (Arenga pinnata) into sugar or ethanol
Ethanol
Ethanol, also called ethyl alcohol, pure alcohol, grain alcohol, or drinking alcohol, is a volatile, flammable, colorless liquid. It is a psychoactive drug and one of the oldest recreational drugs. Best known as the type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, it is also used in thermometers, as a...

, returning cash and power to the community in the attempt to move toward a better future for the people, forest, and native orangutans, while saving 200,000 trees per year from being cut down as fuel wood.
In 1980, when Smits proposed to his wife, Syennie Watoelangkow (of royal blood) in Tomohon
Tomohon
Tomohon is a city in Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is a new city in the province of North Sulawesi , Indonesia. Initially, Tomohon was a part of the Minahasa regency in North Sulawesi. There was a time when the inhabitants felt the necessity of upgrading the status of their residence into an autonomic...

, North Sulawesi
North Sulawesi
North Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia. It is on the island of Sulawesi, and borders the province of Gorontalo to the west . The islands of Sangihe and Talaud form the northern part of the province, which border Davao del Sur in the Philippines.The capital and largest city in North Sulawesi is...

, he was surprised by the dowry: six sugar palms. At that time, a mature sugar palm that was ready to sap cost about as much as a chicken. Nevertheless, the people of Tomohon wanted sugar palms ("pohon aren") instead of gold as the dowry. "I wondered why it was that cheap," Smits says. Later he learnt the answer, calling the sugar palm a "magic tree". He says of the sugar palm. "From the roots to the leaves, every bit is beneficial for people. Those who eat palm sugar will live longer than those who use cane sugar." During his years of research in North Sulawesi and other places in Indonesia where sugar palms grow, he has learned that people are not making the most of the tree and its properties.

In North Sulawesi's capital, Manado
Manado
Manado is the capital of the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia. Manado is located at the Bay of Manado, and is surrounded by a mountainous area. The city has about 405,715 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in Sulawesi after Makassar...

, people sap the trees only to make their traditional alcoholic drink. People in other places sap the trees to make palm sugar or cut them down for sago
Sago
Sago is a starch extracted in the spongy center or pith, of various tropical palm stems, Metroxylon sagu. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas, where it is called saksak and sagu. A type of flour, called sago flour, is made from sago. The largest supply...

. But the tree offers more. For one, nira, the white sap obtained, can be processed into ethanol. "My research shows no tree can produce alternative fuel as well as palm trees," Smits said. "Sugar palms can also help the environment. They are effective in preventing landslides, even on really steep land." The high-quality fibres from sugar palms are also widely used; Smits exports them to Europe, where they are among the materials used in the bodies of luxury cars.

Smits has opened a brown sugar factory in Tomohon, which uses as fuel leftovers from the state energy company Pertamina’s geothermal gas production. Everyday, about 6,200 farmers produce nira for the factory, which is managed by the Masarang Foundation. He claims his "productive, environmentally friendly factory" could become a model for other places in the country. "There are no less than eight provinces that have abundant sugar palms but they have not done much with them," he says. He believes that if Indonesia made the most of its sugar palms, then in two years there would be no need to import sugar any more.

According to Smits' talks for Qi Global and TED
TED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....

, both Samboja Lestari and the Marasang foundation have evolved on the principles of People, Planet, Profit. Smits has demonstrated how community capacity-building and community empowerment can promote economic development while conserving the natural environment.

Orangutan confiscations

With a team of BOS staff and forestry officers Smits confiscates orangutans kept illegally as pets. When an orangutan is confiscated from a home the family is given medicines to fight the parasites they may have contracted from the orangutan (Smits himself recalls three days in hospital on chemotherapy to fight the lungworm
Lungworm
Lungworms are parasitic nematode worms of the order Strongylida that infest the lungs of vertebrates. The name is used for a variety of different groups of nematodes, some of which also have other common names; what they have in common is that they migrate to their hosts' lungs or respiratory...

s and other parasites that threatened his life).

Confiscations are inevitably confrontational at times, and there have been numerous death threats made against Smits.

Primate Centre at Jakarta Zoo

Smits designed the Schmutzer Primate Centre at the Ragunan Zoo
Ragunan Zoo
Ragunan Zoo is a zoo located in Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, Indonesia. It is home to over 270 species of animals, 171 species of flora, and employs over 450 people. Many of the animals are endangered and threatened from all parts of Indonesia and the rest of the world. There are a total of 3,122...

 which opened in 2002 so that the orangutans have freedom and privacy in a habitat with a variety of forest trees and plants, a waterfall and water with turtles and fish, and small animals like porcupines and deer mice. Thick dark glass allows visitors to see the orangutans while being invisible to them.

Smits initially had no interest in zoos, but now sees it as a sanctuary for sick, injured and blind confiscated orangutans (the healthy ones are taken to Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation rehabilitation centres for eventual release into the wild).

Other work

Smits has continued to be involved in the study of the mycorrhizal fungi that improve the uptake of water and nutrients from the soil by the Meranti tree. By using this fungus he has achieved faster growth of young seedlings. He is beside his current work for the orangutans at Wanariset, the Chairman of the Gibbon Foundation and consultant for the Indonesian Orangutan Survival Program.

In 2006 Smits launched TV 5 Dimensi
TV 5 Dimensi
TV 5 Dimensi, commonly referred to as TV5D, is a North Sulawesi local television channel founded in 2006 by Holland-born entrepreneur, Dr Willie Smits, also chairman of the Masarang Foundation. The station is owned by Smits' wife Linneke Syennie Watoelangkow, also deputy to Tomohon City Mayor. TV5D...

, commonly referred to as TV5D, a North Sulawesi
North Sulawesi
North Sulawesi is a province of Indonesia. It is on the island of Sulawesi, and borders the province of Gorontalo to the west . The islands of Sangihe and Talaud form the northern part of the province, which border Davao del Sur in the Philippines.The capital and largest city in North Sulawesi is...

 local television channel, based in Tomohon
Tomohon
Tomohon is a city in Sulawesi in Indonesia. It is a new city in the province of North Sulawesi , Indonesia. Initially, Tomohon was a part of the Minahasa regency in North Sulawesi. There was a time when the inhabitants felt the necessity of upgrading the status of their residence into an autonomic...

. His wife's family in North Sulawesi manages a beach about ten kilometers long, where sea turtle
Sea turtle
Sea turtles are marine reptiles that inhabit all of the world's oceans except the Arctic.-Distribution:...

s grow and visitors may see coral
Coral
Corals are marine animals in class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria typically living in compact colonies of many identical individual "polyps". The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and secrete calcium carbonate to form a hard skeleton.A coral "head" is a colony of...

. Smits also rescues tropical birds from the illegal pet trade.

An increasing amount of Smits' activity has been in disseminating information, outreach, education, and public awareness-raising, his talks for Qi Global and TED
TED (conference)
TED is a global set of conferences owned by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading"....

, being examples of this.

Recognition

Smits received the first non-Indonesian Satya Lencana Pembangunan Award (1998). He has a knighthood in the Netherlands for his conservation work.
Smits was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public
Ashoka: Innovators for the Public is a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, VA, supporting the field of social entrepreneurship. Ashoka was founded by Bill Drayton in 1981 to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs through a Social Venture Capital approach with the goal of...

 in 2009. Ashoka Fellows are leading social entrepreneurs who we recognize to have innovative solutions to social problems and the potential to change patterns across society.

Writing

Thinkers of the Jungle - The Orangutan Report: Pictures, Facts, Background gives an account of the life, behaviour and fate of orangutans. Alongside a wealth of information about this endagered species based on the latest research, authors Willie Smits and Gerd Schuster outline the threat to the orangutan's survival: economical and political interests, exploitation of nature and human ignorance and greed.

The book is illustrated by more than 350 photographs taken by war photographer Jay Ullal.

In August 2007 the publisher Herbert Ullmann set off via Singapore and Jakarta for Balikpapan in Borneo. There he visited two orangutan rehabilitation centres run by Dr. Willie Smits. He was impressed both by the orangutans themselves and by Smits' work in rescuing and rehabilitating them: "There are books that can be published, and books that have to be published."

Documentaries

Smits and his work appeared in a number of documentaries
Documentary
A documentary is a creative work of non-fiction, including:* Documentary film, including television* Radio documentary* Documentary photographyRelated terms include:...

, including:
  • The Burning Season
    The Burning Season (2008 film)
    The Burning Season is a documentary about the burning of rainforests in Indonesia which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008. The main characters featured in the film are: Dorjee Sun from Australia; Achmadi, a small-scale palm oil farmer from Jambi province in Indonesia; and Lone Drøscher...

  • Orangutan Island
    Orangutan Island
    Orangutan Island is a documentary television series, in the style of the hugely successful series Meerkat Manor, that blends more traditional documentary filming with dramatic narration. The series was produced by NHNZ with creator Judith Curran also acting as the series producer...

    (NHNZ)
  • Orangutan Diary
    Orangutan diary
    Orangutan Diary is a nature documentary series on the BBC, which follows the lives of Bornean Orangutans in the care of Lone Drøscher Nielsen, a member of the Borneo Orangutan Survival foundation. The program tries to detail the threat that the orangutans face in day to day life...

    (BBC)
  • The Disenchanted Forest
    The Disenchanted Forest
    The Disenchanted Forest is an award-winning 1999 film that follows endangered orphan orangutans on the island of Borneo as they are rehabilitated and returned to their rainforest home. It centres on the three main Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation projects - Wanariset, Nyaru Menteng and Mawas....

    (National Geographic Channel
    National Geographic Channel
    National Geographic Channel, also commercially abbreviated and trademarked as Nat Geo, is a subscription television channel that airs non-fiction television programs produced by the National Geographic Society. Like History and the Discovery Channel, the channel features documentaries with factual...

    ).
  • Dying for a Biscuit on BBC
    BBC
    The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

     Panorama

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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