Transcript

10.9.25 · Smithsonian Magazine

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Speaker 1: Welcome. This is Rebeccah Shore for Radio Eye and to
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day I will be reading the Smithsonian Magazine dated September
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October twenty twenty five. As a reminder, RADIOI is a
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reading service intended for people who are blind or have
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other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
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Please join me now for the first article titled an
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Orangutan sanctuary in Borneo is giving the endangered primates a
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second chance just when they need it most. The critically
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endangered species gets a helping hand from an Indonesian facility
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as the island's human population is about to explode. By
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Helen Sullivan, the baby orangutans were trying to stall before bedtime.
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One reached out to grab a particularly long leaf through
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the bars of its cage, encouraging a human to play.
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Then employed a classic Toddler sabotage technique, needing. Eventually, the
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orangutan relented, climbing up a jungle gem like structure in
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an otherwise empty if messy room. The floor was littered
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with sticks and pieces of wood. The baby orangutan settled
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into a small hammock and pulled a large leaf over
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its body as a blanket. In the wild, orangutans build
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new nests every night, weaving leaves and branches together and
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curling up in the tree canopy. But this was not
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the wild, not quite. This was the site of the
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world's largest orangutan conservation organization, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation
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or b O s F, based in the Indonesian part
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of the island also known as Collimanton. The day before,
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I had watched an adult female, standing on a concrete
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platform on a lush artificial island surrounded by water, hold
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a large palm frond over her body to shield herself
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from the rain. A permanent resident, she was too tame
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to be released back into the wild, and independent enough
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not to have to live in a cage. Near by,
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a large male conducted high level negotiations with his keeper,
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who was trying to get him to eat his carrots
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before a dessert of dragon fruit, resplendent and impossibly sleek,
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long and unmatted orange fur. He poked a stick into
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the deep water between himself and the keeper. If you
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don't give me the dragonfruit now, he seemed to be saying,
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I'll just have to come over there and get it myself.
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Orangutans share ninety seven percent of their DNA with humans.
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Somewhere in that missing three percent was the transparency of
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the orangutan's bluff. The keeper knew that the orangutan couldn't swim.
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If you haven't been to Borneo, you may imagine it
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as a lamb and of dense tropical jungle and strange
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living things, giant flowers, abundant leeches, venomous snakes dangling from vines.
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In his nineteen eighty four memoir Into the Heart of Borneo,
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the English writer Redmond o'hanlan described it like this, two
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hundred foot high trees crowded down the slopes of the
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hills almost to the water's edge, an apparently endless chaos
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of different species of tree, every kind of green, even
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under the uniform glare of a tropical sun. At the time,
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three quarters of Borneo was covered in rainforest. Now almost
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half of that land has been cleared. The view from
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my plane as I descended was of coal barges fanning
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out from the coast. The airport is a large, gleaming
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white and silver building with the dunkin doughnuts inside the
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arrival's lounge, but Borneo's remaining forest has some of the
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highest species diversity on Earth, according to the World Wildlife
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Fund for Nature, with one area of Lambeir Hills National
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Park in Sarawak, Malaysia holding the world record for tree
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diversity more than one thousand species and one hundred twenty
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five acres in. Each of these holds its own great
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diversity too. Scientists have found one thousand species of insect
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and a single tree. Overall, Borneo is home to six
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percent of the world's biodiversity. Nearly ninety percent of all
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orangutans in the world can be found there. The rest
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are on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Because orangutans spend
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almost all their time up in the trees, the island's deforestation,
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mainly from palm oil farming and mining, is the biggest
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threat they face. Borneo's orangutan population had between nineteen ninety
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nine and two th thousand fifteen from three hundred thousand
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to one hundred fifty thousand. In the decades since then,
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the population has declined by another third to one hundred
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thousand today. A two thousand twenty two study predicted that
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more than a quarter of today's population could be lost
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to deforestation by twenty thirty two. All of this makes
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bosf's work more crucial than ever. Since the foundation was
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established in nineteen ninety one, it has released five hundred
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thirty three orangutans, and it maintains three hundred fifty nine
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permanent residents that are too tame, diseased, or disabled to
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live in the wild, depending on their circumstances. These residents
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live in cages or on artificial islands. In the foundation's
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two centers in East and Central Kalimantane, there are twenty
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orangutans with diseases living in one set of time cages,
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raised off the ground and set apart from one another.
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As we approached these cages one morning, a female, wanting
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to get a closer look at us, moved down a
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rope with the agility of a pole dancer. Farther up
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a sloped pathway was a network of ten silver cages
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on stilts high above the ground. There, one of the
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long time residents, an orangutan named Coprol, who lost both
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of his arms after being electrocuted and could not survive
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in the wild, did a forward flip from one end
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of his cage to the other, the animals face a
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formidable new test. Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country
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after India, China, and the United States, is moving its
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capital from the sinking island of Java to a planned
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city called Nusantara on Borneo, forty miles from b O
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s F's east Kalamantan centerruduction began in twenty twenty two
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and is scheduled to finish in twenty forty five. The
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government hopes one point nine million people will live in
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nu Centaura by twenty thirty five, Indonesian Borneo's population will
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grow from seventeen million to twenty million. Indonesia's government says
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nu Centaura will be a green forest city, with all
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its energy dron from renewable sources and residents mostly traveling
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by foot, bicycle, or public transportation. The government says the
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city will be carbon neutral by twenty forty five. Still,
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it is hard to counteract the environmental impacts of the
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construction of an entire city in a place where there
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had only been trees. Last year, workers took a video
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of an orangutan crossing at construction site for a road
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leading into the new city. It would be truly remarkable
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if such large scale infrastructure development did not negatively affect
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threatened species. Andrew Marshall, a tropical ecologist at the University
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of Michigan who has studied orangutans in Borneo, told me
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in an e mail such projects always do. He added,
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there are good reasons related to human welfare for moving
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the capital to Calimantan. It is an understandable move, but
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it is likely to have considerable downsides. There are always
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trade offs. It takes diplomacy to keep the Foundations sanctuary
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going in a place where so many people are struggling.
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Across Calimantan's five provinces, almost two thirds of the population
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live below the poverty line. Caring for a single orangutan
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costs five hundred dollars a month, according to jermartin Sea Height,
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a conservationist and one of b O s f's trustees.
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But b O s f's web site invites overseased owners
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to symbolically adopt an orangutan for as little as ten
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dollars a month. That's because local Indonesians, who earn an
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average of three hundred fifty dollars a month, might turn
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against conservation efforts. If they felt that orangutans were earning
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higher salaries than they were, they will say, how could
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you put money to the orangutan not to us? She said,
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to make people not look at an orangutang as their competitors.
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This is a part of the strategy. What are the
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traits we share with our large orange relatives. Orangutans treat
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their wounds with medicinal plants. They make tools and keep
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their favorites for future use. But there are many traits
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we don't share. Their arms are one and a half
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times as long as their legs, which helps them climb
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from branch to branch in what's known as quadruminous scrambling.
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They are the most solitary of great apes, a group
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that includes gorilla as Bonobo's, chimpanzees, and us. When their
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genome was sequenced in twenty eleven, scientists discovered orangutans have
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changed very little in the past fifteen million years compared
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with people and chimpanzees. Orangutans have the longest birth interval
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of any land mammal. They have a second child only
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once the first is independent, which takes about seven years.
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Producing so few young is one reason they struggle to
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rebuild their populations. Like humans, female orangutans can get postpartum depression,
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particularly those who lost their own mothers in traumatic incidents.
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When the baby is crying just because it's a newborn baby,
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the mother doesn't want to hug it, doesn't want to breastfeed.
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Aegis Erwanto, one of the foundation's veterinarians, said, if a
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mother doesn't show interest within three days, the baby is
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taken from her. Mothers don't seem to notice a baby's absence.
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Teaching a baby urrangutan to survive requires years of close attention.
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Urwanto laughs when he talks about Jungle School. The school's
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technicians teach the orangutans how to climb, what to eat
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and how to find it, and how to make a nest.
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Because orangutans learn by imitation, the technicians act out these activities.
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The animals tend to bond more with some technicians than others.
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They're picky. Erwantos said, trial and error has shown that
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women are much better at the job. The Foundation suspects
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that is because in many cases the orangutans mothers have
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been killed by men whose deep voices then scare them
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Once the orangutans graduate, they are placed on a small,
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semi wild island several acres of land hemmed in by
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constructed canals. The iranguans must prove that they can be independent.
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It is time for tough love, which Irwanto sums up
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in two heartbreaking sentences. We don't hug them, We don't
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say their name. If the orangutans are able to climb,
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build nests, find food, and interact with other orangutans, they
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are fitted with telemetric chips and placed in cages for
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their release. The three release sites managed by BOSF are
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twelve hours from the sanctuary by car. BOSF researchers spend
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the next year monitoring the newly wild orangutans. As the
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animals enjoy their freedom, some of them roam out of
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the range of radio signals, which means the monitoring team
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has to search the jungle on foot to find them.
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The hardest thing about this, one young researcher told me later,
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is how sore your net gets from staring up at
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the canopy. The building that houses bo SF's visitors resembles
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an orangutan, though I was told this was not by design.
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Three stories tall, it has large arm and leg like
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orange wooden pillars, and it dispatched with a material that
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has the texture of long, dark hair. That's the thing
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about orangutans. Once you have seen one, it is hard
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not to recognize them in all sorts of things. During
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my visit, Aldrianto priya Jati, the habitat's deputy director, gave
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a presentation in the open air dining room. As he began,
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heavy drops of rain landed loudly on the large, bright
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leaves behind us. Priya Jatti changed slides and gestured at
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the surroundings tall thin trees covered in long tangled vines.
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On the screen was a photograph of how the land
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had looked twenty years ago, all grassland with no trees.
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In the early two thousands, b O L began restoring
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almost five thousand acres. First, it planted seven hundred and
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forty native tree species. Local residents were offered a deal.
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As long as they helped protect the trees, they could
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use the land to grow fruit. The fruit trees attracted bats,
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birds and other animals that spread seeds without the need
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from more digging. Since then, the foundation has been purchasing
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fruit from the farmers to feed its animals, which eat
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more than two tons of it daily. The land also
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houses one of the world's largest sunbaar sanctuaries, also run
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by b O s F. The reforested area was too
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large to fence. For now, there is something of what
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Priyagati called a natural unnatural fence made up of coal mines.
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Borneo provides sixty percent of Indonesia's coal exports. Illegal mining
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is also rife, and estimates of the scale of illegal
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mining are difficult to find, but in twenty fourteen, Indonesia's
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government estimated that at least fifty five million tons of
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coal were mined and exported illegally from the country. For now,
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most of the land owned or managed by BSF has
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been designated a conservation area because of BSF's success in
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regenerating forest. The Indonesian government is consulting with the sanctuary
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on how to redevelop lands around the new capital, which
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is built largely on rainforest that was cleared for plantations
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Sea Heights said. BOSF is advising the government on which
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tree species plant and lobbying for more rainforested land to
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be legally protected. Still, Marshal of the University of Michigan
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is concerned secondary negative effects of infrastructure development will likely
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be considerable and spread far from the site itself. He
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told me. Massive projects such as this nearly always have
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unanticipated consequences. After sunset one evening, I drove to Nucentaura
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with an orangutan researcher named Amanda Rama. The journey, which
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should have taken an hour and a half, took almost
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four hours as we spent much of it behind slow
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trucks carrying cement mixers, industrial pipes and water tanks. Forest
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gave way to low buildings, then suddenly there were tall
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apartment blocks and a half finished hospital. Forklifts and bulldozers
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roamed like dinosaurs after dark. The dust reminded Rama of
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her visits to landscapes destroyed by mines and palm oil plantations,
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she said, but even she was not immune to the
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splendor of a city built from scratch. The Garuda, she yelled,
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as we drove farther into what had at first looked
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like a construction sight ahead of us was a giant
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building shaped like Garuda, a divine eagle from Hindu mythology.
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It wasn't finished yet. Sparks flew as construction continued late
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into the night. The light appeared to drip off its
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outstretched wings like shining feathers. In April, the Foundation released
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six orangutans into the wild. Three of them had taken
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more than fifteen years to rehabilitate. They'd arrived at the
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center as Toddler's before. The city of Nusentara was their
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twinkle in the Indonesian government's eye. By then, I was
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back home in Sydney, Australia, where my own toddler reminded
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me of an orangutan more often than I wanted to admit.
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I kept thinking about the fact that the enormous animals
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I had seen had changed so little in fifteen million years,
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and yet a city had been conjured from scratch in
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just three years, in the time it would have taken
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an orangutan mum to raise two offspring. From nineteen ninety
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nine to twenty fifteen, half of the Islands orangutans had died.
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The species urgently needs saving, and yet none of the
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work can happen quickly. From shutting down an illegal coal
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mine that could raise hundreds of trees in a few hours,
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to teaching an orphaned baby to dig for termites. Humans
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still have time to restore what our developments have destroyed,
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but it will be so much easier to prevent the
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destruction that's yet to come. Next, Frank Cameni helped chart
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a path to liberation for millions of gay Americans. Personal
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notebooks reveal what life was like for the Washington activist
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who spent decades advocating for equal rights in the federal
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government and elsewhere. By Brandon Tensley. In nineteen fifty seven,
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Frank Camini, a thirty two year old dame astronomer with
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the Army Map Service, was on a work trip to
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Hawaii and the West Coast when he was told to
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report back to Washington, d C. For questioning. There, civil
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Service investigators asked him to respond to reports that he
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was gay. I don't see how it's relevant to any
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rational concern or business of the government. Kameni, a World
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War Two veteran, recalled answering. He was soon fired. The
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official cause cited was that he had falsified his job
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application an official government document by downplaying his arrest for
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lewd behavior with another man the previous year. Kameni told
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a government he'd been arrested for disorderly conduct, a less
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grave sin in those days. At the time, the government
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deemed gay Americans to be security risks and effectively banned
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them from federal service. These were the days of the
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lavender Scare, which drew out of the anti communist panic
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of the nineteen forties and fifties. Camini appealed his dismissal
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in various courts, and in nineteen sixty one petitioned the
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United States Supreme Court to take up his case. The
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court declined to review it. Furious, Cameni would devote his
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life to fighting homophobia. We are here to stay. We
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are part of American life in society, and you will
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be seeing a lot more of us, he declared in
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a nineteen sixty nine letter. Born in New York City
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on May twenty first, nineteen twenty five, to a Jewish family,
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Camini became a trail blazing activist for gay rights. In
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nineteen sixty one, after his fruitless petition to the Supreme Court,
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Cameni co founded the Washington, d c. Chapter of the
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Mattachin Society, a pioneering organization with what was then called
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the homophile movement. The priest Stone Lay Campaign for Gay
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Equality four years later, the group led the first recorded
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gay rights picket of the White House, protesting the government's
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banning of gay Americans from the federal service. Homosexual citizens
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want to serve their country too. Sexual preference is irrelevant
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to federal employment. These were radical messages for the Erakameni
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neatly captured his ethos and the slogan gay is Good,
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which he coined in nineteen sixty eight, inspired by the
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Black Power mantra black as beautiful for those within the community,
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the phrase certainly instilled some pride to counterbalance the rhetoric
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of gays are going to hell, says Franklin A. Robinson Junior,
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an archivist with the National Museum of American History, and
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Kameni aptly linked the struggle for gay rights to other
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battles for equality. We are interested in obtaining rights for
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our respective minorities, as negroes, as Jews, and as homosexuals,
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he proclaimed at a nineteen sixty four public meeting at
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Freedom House, a Washington based nonprofit. In nineteen seventy one,
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Cameni became the first openly gay person to run for
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US Congress, as he vied to serve as Washington's delegate
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to the House of Representatives. He presented himself as a
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candidate who had something to offer everybody. I was very
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conscious of running a double barreled, double issue campaign, he
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recalled to Washingtonian Magazine in twenty ten. If you're going
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to run for public office, you have to become an
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expert on trash collection, road repair, and all the things
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that concern people. But I was running a parallel campaign
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on gay issues. While Cameni lost his bid, he played
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a big role in pressuring the American Psychiatric Association to
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remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses and disorders
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in nineteen seventy three, and some two decades later, he
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lobbied President Clinton to sign a nineteen ninety five executive
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order banning anti gay discrimination in federal security clearances. In
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two thousand nine, two years before he died, the US
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government issued an apology to Kameni for his nineteen fifty
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seven termination Caameni's idealism is especially vivid in the pages
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of five notebooks he kept beginning in the nineteen fifties.
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They held information about places across the US that were
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gay friendly, from bars to restaurants to hotels. Two of
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the notebooks are in the Archives Center of the National
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Museum of American History. Kamini described the Sports Lounge in Springfield, Massachusetts,
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as the best in town Sam's Place in Chicago. Apparently
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he drew a younger crowd and over in the resort
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town of a Gunquit, Maine. While the owners of the
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Tides Hotel were non members, they were sympathetic to gay travelers.
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It's a mystery what Kamenie intended to do with the notebooks.
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Written in terse language and sometimes hard to decipher. Robinson
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speculates it's possible Camenie wanted to publish them, in which
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case they would have been precursors to Bob Damren's Address Book,
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popular guides published starting in the nineteen sixties that allowed
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gays and lesbians to find sites of acceptance and community,
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essentially gay versions of the Green Book, which black motorists
24:42
used to avoid discriminatory businesses and potential violence under Jim Crow.
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If Robinson's speculation is correct, the notebooks illustrate just how
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determined Kameni was to help his fellow gay Americans find
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places where they could live in safety, even joy. Finally,
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institutional knowledge. The letter from Lonnie G. Bunch the third Secretary,
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Beyond the Mall. What began as a local outreach program
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now brings the magic of the Smithsonian to learners across
25:19
the nation, occasionally to the chagrin of my team. I
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enjoy sneaking out of beatings and wandering around Smithsonian buildings,
25:28
sometimes the galleries of the nearby Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,
25:33
sometimes my old stomping grounds at the National Museum of
25:35
American History. I once even visited the feather identification lab
25:41
at the National Museum of Natural History, where I learned
25:44
how its scientists attempt to stop birds from flying into aircraft.
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Whether our curators are sharing an impromptu lesson on entomology
25:53
or seventeenth century portraiture, I always reflect, Wow, there really
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is nowhere else I could do this. I am not
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the first secretary to have this thought. Sixty years ago,
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then Secretary s. Dilon Ripley wanted to share that same
26:09
feeling of discovery, not only with visitors to our museums,
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but also with folks in our own backyard. So, in
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honor of James Smithson's two hundredth birthday, Ripley created the
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Smithsonian Society of Associates now known as Smithsonian Associates, to
26:26
create educational and enlightening programming that connects our exceptional resources
26:31
with the Washington d C community and beyond. The Earliest
26:35
opportunities included scholarly tours of local landmarks, including Lafayette Square
26:41
and Saint John's Episcopal Church. Some pursuits were precursors to
26:45
activities that now fall under our broader educational umbrella, such
26:50
as zoo tours for children. Smithsonian Associates also launched the
26:56
legendary Washington Kite Festival, held every spring and Falling the
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release of the two thousand nine movie Night at the Museum,
27:04
Battle of Smithsonian founded Smithsonian Sleepovers, where pajama clad visitors
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participate in educational activities before dozing off on their own
27:14
air mattresses. Smithsonian Associates now covers myriad topics from color
27:20
theory to computer science, fulfilling Ripley's dream of the institution
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becoming a cultural hub for the region. As a former professor,
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I see it as a college town for the entire country,
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a place to get to know your neighbors and learn
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from them. For its sixtieth anniversary, Smithsonian Associates has been
27:39
holding special events throughout the year, culminating in a celebration
27:43
this fall. Whether you want to expand your appreciation for
27:47
Shakespeare's poetry or ignite your curiosity with the mysteries of
27:52
the Space Shuttle, I invite you to help us toast
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sixty wonderful years. I look forward to many more. This
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concludes readings from the Smithsonian Magazine for to day. Your
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reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening, and
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have a great day.