Endangered Orangutans
Despite the Leuser Ecosystem in Northern Sumatra being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the orangutans in the region are one of the area’s most endangered species due to deforestation. Palm-oil plantations are using the land to extract materials used in 50% of the region’s supermarket products (such as cosmetics, snack foods, and pharmaceutical substances), causing orangutans to retreat towards unfamiliar territory since the land they once thrived on is disappearing.
The Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) is determined to keep enough orangutans alive in their native region. According to a BBC News article, the SOCP has been committed to orangutan preservation for the last 20 years, which includes “confiscating those illegally taken as pets and returning them to the wild.”
Rehab centers for displaced orangutans have been established by the SOCP. Once doctors have rehabilitated the orangutans, they are released back into the wild, albeit in a different location than their initial homeland.
Since 1999, more than 100,000 orangutans have been killed by deforestation and slaughter. Their steady disappearance from Southeast Asia and Western Indonesia promises the eventual end of the closest human relatives.
Photographs taken by Charlie Dailey for BBC News speak abundantly clear.
Further reporting can be found here.
Visit the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme website for more information on the SOCP’s efforts.
–Salvatore Casto
Oh the Places You Wanna Go
Every year, The New York Times publishes a list of “52 Places To Go in 20XX.” Whenever I read these lists, I always find myself wondering if “52” is genius number, or a lazy number. On one hand, it is safe. It is a large enough number that all bases can be covered. They can hit the touristy spots and the more eclectic rarities, and even the apparently-unimpressive gems. On another hand, this safety, this ability to hit all bases, makes each list feel sort of unexciting, particularly for someone who can’t afford to travel. I start reading the list and I’m like, “Canada is number one! I’m out!” And then two is, like, the Swiss Alps and my traveling dreams are crushed by the reality of my minuscule financial aid check which still hasn’t been dispatched and my part-time job with inconsistent hours. The issue is, every place on the list seems cool, and how could it not to someone who has been very few places? All the list provides, after all, is a ranking and a blurb about the most notable aspects. How can one possibly be decisive with so many options, each presented with only their most desirable facets?
This year, however, The New York Times took it a step further. They created what is maybe the most coveted position in reporting: one traveler, to dedicate the entire year to visiting all 52 places on the list. This traveler–chosen out of 13,000 applicants–is Jada Yuan (I imagine trying to pick the perfect person for this job was significantly more difficult than picking a place to go on a list of 52, which is already pretty hard).
Her travels started recently, with the number one place on the list for 2018: New Orleans. And with the conclusion of this trip came her first article. I’ll be frank. Reading this article left no doubt that whoever was in charge of the tedious task of hiring the perfect candidate for this position had succeeded. I don’t even think I am being dramatic when I say that, from the first paragraph, I had a feeling she was going to be, like, really good:
On my first trip to New Orleans, eight years ago, I bought a new pair of sneakers. By the end of a week I had danced in the streets so much I’d worn holes through the bottoms of each of them, straight through to my socks. That, more than Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest or oak trees or gumbo, is my indelible image of the city: The only place in the world where I’ve had such a good time that the shoes melted right off my feet.
I just can’t get over the rich allure of that image! Dancing in the streets to the point where her shoes have melted off. It speaks so much to both her character, her ability to immerse herself wholly into a culture, and to the soul of the city, which she goes on to describe with great integrity and attention to detail.
Yuan curates her experiences in such a precise way that the subtleties sing without ever seeming sensationalized. In one paragraph, she quotes Angelika Joseph, the singer for New Orlean’s only all-female brass-band, as saying, “New Orleans is a feeling. It’s your grandmother’s cooking. It’s music, it’s fun, it’s food, it’s partying, it’s a parade all the time.” Just a few lines later, she quotes some guy she heard on the street, and then just a bit later, her Uber driver. She manages to pull all of these characters together to make an inherent statement about the life of the city, the soul that runs through it, without needing any dramatics of sweeping conclusions to do so. Yuan is a master of the “show, don’t tell” in this first article documenting her travels. I can’t even pretend to do it justice, but I can totally share the article and highly recommend you read it and sign up for the email updates. 52 is a big number, for sure, but I have a feeling Yuan will make it just a bit more tangible, for seasoned travelers and unseasoned dreamers alike.
Check out the full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/travel/new-orleans-52-places-traveler.html
–NG
Checking in with Catalonia
It’s hard to think above the sound of gunshots. Of tweets. Of protests flooding the streets: demanding the protection of black and female and immigrant bodies. It’s hard to think above the shouting, each side of this country insisting it’s right. The screams of dying children, the cries of bereaved family members. The thoughts and prayers of men and women who offer pre-prepared condolences towards victims of institutions that stuff obscene amounts of money in their pockets. It’s hard not to be angry. It’s hard not to be sad. It’s hard not to feel helpless.
It is also, thankfully, hard to feel alone. If misery loves company, than the entire world is blessed with like minded individuals every single day. And it’s almost a breath of fresh air to delve into the problems of anybody else, just to get a break from one’s own.
There was a brief moment in October of last year, when the independence bid for Catalonia was making international headlines. The northeastern region of Spain held a vote to determine if their people wanted to secede from the rest of the nation. Turnout was comparatively low to the number of eligible voters, but those who did participate overwhelmingly supported secession. The Spanish government’s response was to send in a militarized police force to violently crack down on the population, and fire political leaders of the secessionist movement.
Catalonia is distinctive from the rest of the semi-autonomous Spanish regions in that their official language is not Spanish (or, Castilian) but Catalan, which is also a romance language, but as distinct from Spanish as Italian and French are distinct from one another. The region’s capital is Barcelona, an extremely prosperous city, and its wealth had developed into a sore point for the secessionists who feel that they’re supporting a disproportionate amount of the entire nation’s economic burden without seeing that money returned into Catalonian infrastructure. In a nutshell, they hate high taxes, a frequent gripe of political entities that desire independence. Lastly, though Spain allows for its regions an amount of self-governance, the secessionists believe it deserves full autonomy in the form of independence, largely in part of their distinct cultural identity from the rest of the nation.
Now, Catalonia is currently subject to Article 155 of the Spanish constitution which has allowed the government under right-wing Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to apply direct rule on the region. It is sharply reminiscent of the invasive presence military dictator Francisco Franco held over Catalonia from 1939 to 1975, before Spain ostensibly became a democracy. Despite the violent response of police towards Catalan voters (reportedly, 90 people were injured) in response to a basic tenet of democratic practice, the European Union is overwhelmingly backing the Spanish government in agreeing that the vote for secession was illegal.
On February 16 of this year, it was announced that Rajoy was considering using direct rule to enforce the establishment of Castilian as the official language of the region. This is a clear tactic for those who believe that unity is only possible with conformity and cultural suppression. Eroding the language of different cultures under one’s rule is a well honored tradition of imperial forces. That is why the indigenous languages of former Spanish colonies and Native American tribes, for instance, are increasingly rarely spoken. To speak in the language of one’s conqueror secedes a certain amount of power. Speaking and thinking are intimately entwined, and to speak in the language of one culture causes one to think on that culture’s terms.
The secessionist vote occurred on the heels of Brexit, which is one reason it is unsurprising that the EU was not eager to back the independence bid. And indeed, there is enough evidence to suggest that Europe ought to be nervous whenever they’re faced with countries breaking from the herd. Those two world wars left their mark. But it is hard to follow Catalan’s journey as an American and condemn their attempts at independence without feeling like a hypocrite. Their vote might have been illegal, but so was the Revolutionary War. So is every revolution. And the brutal response of the Spanish government suggests that Catalonia has a right to desire freedom, especially when their methods were non-violent and simply an expression of democracy.
Sources: Video Explaining Catalonia’s Independence Movement; Direct Rule on Language; Cultural Differences; An Overview of the Conflict
~Amanda
The Junction Journal 