Green Hill and conservation.
…..this is our regeneration site……it used to be a palm oil plantation!
Here at Green Hill we directly drive and self fund our very own conservation projects.
We are unique in that we are a grass roots conservation project self funded by our ethical
and sustainable tourism programme.
Community based Conservation
We are part of our community. We dont ‘do’ conservation to them or ‘educate’ them. We do not inflict our ideas or plans on them…..as is the case with many conservation projects that work with border edge communities. We are against colonial style conservation narratives be it from international projects or local ones. We do not use our community to gain access to grants or donations.
click here to read an article on community conservation.
We believe in doing our best to make a long term sustainable difference and working with our friends in the communities along the border on the national park. From the very beginning of Green Hill we were proud to offer and take guests trekking the this remote area and ALWAYS take a guide and support team from the village. After having trekked for several years in the area we asked what the village needed and were able to contribute by buying land for a graveyard and signing it over to the village. Additionally, working with the local government we donated a plot of land to be used for the building of a village hall. Through our Nature Club and Community Library in the village of Tualang Gepang we provide long term educational opportunities.
By being an active part of our community in a positive and respectful manner we are able to facilitate appropriate responses to instances of human wildlife conflict and provide information and skill sharing on a variety of different topics and issues.
#keepwildlifewild and #safeselfie campaign
A lot of orangutan tourism in Bukit Lawang is unsustainable and has a negative impact on the orangutans. People continue to feed the orangutans (and monkeys) or entice them down from the trees. In the wild orangutans spend 90% of their time high in the forest canopy but in Bukit Lawang they are always on the ground or very low in small trees and close to humans. ‼️This is not normal behaviour.‼️
Since the very day that Green Hill opened we have strictly followed our own sustainable trekking practises which were developed with reference to published literature on wildlife watching, disease transmission and ecotourism. We are extremely focussed on not feeding the wildlife and managing guest expectations by never guaranteeing any sightings. We are very active in working with a variety of stakeholders to promote awareness of ethical trekking and have developed a range of educational materials available in Green Hill, at the entrance to the national park and online through our social media channels.
Andrea worked with officials from Gunung Leuser National Park (GLNP) to produce an educational leaflet which encapsulates the official rules for visitors to the national park. The leaflet is available in english and bahasa Indonesia.
In order to promote awareness of #safeselfies Andrea developed a poster and selfie frame in collaboration with colleagues at Alameda Wildlife Conservation Park and Gunung Leuser National Park (supported by the IUCN primate-human interaction specialist group). The education campaign is centred around promoting awareness online through social media and also by working with the local community using a travelling “Safe Selfie Booth” where people can take selfies and get an info leaflet.
The poster has also been turned into plastic rain canopys for the becaks (tuk-tuks) which now act as “mobile educational conservation units”…40+ have been donated to the drivers.
Andrea was the lead author on a scientific paper entitled “Primate selfies and anthropozoonotic diseases: lack of rule compliance and poor risk perception threatens orangutans” .which was published in October 2021. This research was based on a systematic review of photos posted on Instagram using #bukitlawang and revealed that ALL photos containing both an orangutan and human showed inappropriate behaviours (direct contact, feeding orangutans, close proximity <5m), providing direct evidence of noncompliance with the 10m distance rule. Most of these photographs additionally showed orangutans performing abnormal positional behaviours such as being low to or on the ground rather than their natural high position in the canopy; being near the ground and in close proximity to humans increases the risk of catching human diseases. It appears that visitors do not perceive their behaviours as presenting a risk to the orangutans and therefore increased awareness, education and enforcement of rules by all stakeholders, tourism bodies and government officials needs to be actioned in order to safeguard this important population, which is crucial to the future survival of the Sumatran orangutan.
The publication of this paper received a lot pf press attention and was reported widely (e.g. The Times, The Independant, The Daily Mail) and also by Indonesian news outlet Kompas.com.
Biodiversity awareness and #morethanorangutan
In order to take a bit of pressure off the orangutans and busy Bukit Lawang trails we created a conservation project to catalogue and promote awareness of the incredible biodiversity and thus #bukitlawang #morethanorangutan was born.
We started by taking photos of any bit of wildlife that we saw, trying to identify the species and posting photos on social media. By keeping a record of the ‘species richness’ we were able to register our project with the UN decade of biodiversity programme which ran from 2010-2020 and we recorded over 300 different species! We are now in the process of uploading our photos to iNaturalist, an amazing social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. please head over there and have a look at some super cool wildlife. You can click on the link or go to the website www.inaturalist.org and find us at greenhillsumatra.
Jungle trekking in remote areas
Ever since Green Hill opened in 2006 we have offered trekking in remote areas to take the pressure of the busy trails and campsites in Bukit Lawang. For over ten years we are the only operator offering treks in the geographically close but practically remote area of Tualang Gepang/Bukit Kencur which is virtually untouched national park rainforest. We have employed a growing team of people from the local villages some of whom used to be hunters. By engaging with and becoming part of the community and providing an alternative source of income such practices have stopped and our teams have become ambassadors for sustainable trekking behaviours. When we initially started trekking in this area 10 years ago it was quite common to find snare traps but now they are seldom found and our local guides tell us that it is because we take people trekking there and that we have an physical presence in the form of our regeneration site(and Ecolodge) which is right on the borders of the national park, a key position in terms of conservation monitoring.
We are very excited to work with our friends Simolap Wild Adventures and their community group KPL who are based approx 2 hours from BUkit Lawang in a remote area right on the edge of Gunung Leuser National Park. We have been really proud to take guests to visit this area, go trekking and get involved with community conservation there.
Nature Club and The Library
Andrea is an experienced educator and is passionate about outreach work that focuses on skill and knowledge sharing. For almost 10 years we have run a Nature Club and library in the remote village of Tualang Gepang and we provide enhanced creative education based on the UK national curriculum for science and hope to inspire and empower the children to learn about and protect their own environment and the wildlife. Special sessions have included ‘field trips’ into the national park and specific awareness days e.g. Pangolin, Rhinos, Orangutan. We are pleased to collaborate with the Little Fireface research project to provide ongoing awareness sessions on the endangered Slow Loris.
Over time we have slowly built up a great collection of books which we kept in boxes in our store shed in the village and had a super energetic yet intense book exchange once a week. Weekly sessions started with “tukar buku / book swap” where the kids could borrow up to three books from the extensive library and lessons cover topics such as English,Science, Biology, Environmental Science and always end with a practical art and craft session related to that weeks lesson.
We are super excited to have finally saved up enough money to buy a small plot of land and have created a purpose built library which is open to the whole community. To be honest its more than a library…its a flexible learning space and community hub…….
Regeneration / rewilding site…
..and remote Ecolodge.
Our main project focus in the remote area, between the villages of Tualang Gepang and Bukit Kencur, is our regeneration site which is 5 hectares of ex palm oil plantation right on the border of TNGL. We bought the land 5 years ago, chopped all the palm oil down and have now successfully replanted and regenerated the land with a mixed crop of durian and fruit trees. We have allowed the borders to go wild…..which now act as corridors connecting the wildlife back to the national park rainforest.
We KNOW there is a lot of biodiversity here…we monitor the area with camera traps and the results are really incredible. click here
We wanted to provide the opportunity to stay in this amazing area and experience real community ecotourism….but with a little more ‘luxury’ that the basic jungle camp type facilities so we built our “Jungle Villa” and “Jungalow” (cute a frame cabin) from ecofriendly and sustainably sourced materials. We can now offer guests the opportunity to stay here and explore the surrounding area…to go off grid and rewild. There is electricity but no wifi and fresh running water comes from the spring (where at one point there was a turtle living with a baby).
