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Attention all shoppers

This isn't strictly to do with CP's and I realise that most posters on this forum are "home growers" but being here in Bali I am kind of stuck out in the backwaters and have no contacts with the kind of people that might find what I have to say important.

An Australian lady and her husband came to my orchid garden last week, they have a house here in Bali but basically live near a town called Tarakan in east Kalimantan (Borneo). They recently purchased a palm oil plantation and have begun clearing 10,000 hectares of virgin tropical rainforest. Every month they clear around 50 hectares, with bulldozers, selling the timber and burning the undergrowth and whatever is growing on the trees. He said they burn about 3 tonnes of orchids, that are ripped off the timber, each month. He claimed that he wasn't happy with what was happening and rather than burning the vegetation, which would include Amorphophallus, Gingers, Palms and untold species of orchids as well as billions of plants I have no clue about, he would provide 2 rooms in their camp and transportation. I could station 4 people in the camp to strip the forest before they bulldoze. There are timber boats going down the river 4 times each day so the boxes of plants could be transported to Tarakan (a day up river by boat) for free too. Transport of the plants from there is my problem.

I am planning on going up there to set something up some time in the next few months but if they are seriously burning 3 tonnes of orchids every month then I don't expect to be able to cater for even a small fraction of what could be rescued!

If anyone is interested and/ or has contacts with organisations/ companies that would like to assist and save some plants please pass on my name and contact details:

Thanks.

Troy Davis
Bali Orchid Garden
hachiya@indosat.net.id
 
Troy, that sort of think seldom works out as the labor usually doesn't justify the cost. It would be fun to be able to collect plants and reptiles, but the legal and logistical infrastructure would be nightmarish.

I lived in Papua New Guinea, and I think every sqaure inch of that island has been burned at one time, and I think it would be the same with Bali, it's just that the jungle grows back so fast that 10 years after a farm or a factory or a plantation is abandoned, you can't tell it was there.

Sounds like a nice idea for a vaccation however!
 
Hi Tim

I have no doubt almost all of Bali has been cleared at some time in the past but I am talking about Kalimantan which I have visited and it is pretty untouched.

Re the labour costs, we will be using local labour to do the collecting, etc and paying them the standard wage, which is about US$40 a month.

Cheers, Troy.
 
If you can get someone to go through the necessary legal work I would consider volunteering my time. I tried to get a form of red stripped sugar cane brought back from New Guinea that tasted like pepperment, but the bureaucracy was just too overwhelming.
 
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