My name is Nicolas Z., I am from Munich (Germany) and I spent the last month volunteering with Tasikoki Wildlife Rescue and Education Centre. Normally I would be working in the Finance Department of a multinational corporation in Europe, but I decided to take a one-year sabbatical in order to work for different NGOs around Indonesia on subjects that I am passionate about.
The first question I always get asked is why Indonesia and why choose Tasikoki? Well, I first travelled to Indonesia in 2009 and was flabbergasted by the lush tropical forests and also the amazing marine life. It was by far the most beautiful natural environments I had seen so far in my life. At the same time, I was horrified to see the extent of destruction caused by us humans and mainly the palm oil industry. I remember climbing a mountain in the east of Borneo and as far as I could see from up there, there were only palm oil plantations everywhere. What happened to all the vibrant rainforests and all the wildlife living there? What about the orangutans?
Coming home from this trip I started researching about rainforest conservation and found a video that encouraged me to ask for this one-year sabbatical. It is a Ted talk by Willie Smits on “How to restore a rainforest”.
This video touched me in many ways, as it showed me that there is hope out there and that some people are actually performing amazing work to try to save Indonesian rainforests and the wildlife. I finally contacted Willie in 2019 and mentioned that I would have one year to support his numerous projects across Indonesia. And this is how it all started.
I have now just spent roughly one month working for Tasikoki Centre in Sulawesi and have even more respect for all the achievements so far. Taking care of roughly 400 birds, primates, reptiles and other animals which have been rescued from illegal animal trade takes a lot of effort and commitment. It is really crazy, most of us humans love nature so much and at the same time we are destroying it at incredible speeds through our daily life and excessive consumption habits. And restoring all those natural habitats takes an incredible amount of work which wouldn’t be needed if we respected our natural environments in the first place. It would make much more sense to simply let nature be without touching it and all this work of taking care of animals would not be needed…nature takes so good care of itself. In the rainforest every animal, every plant has its special purpose and all this ecosystem works in perfect harmony…it is growing food for its inhabitants, recycling the leftovers, filtering the water and the air…basically everything we need to thrive and survive…so why are we destroying this beautiful paradise world? But unfortunately, this is too simplistic a way of looking at things — and that’s why we need to have a centre like Tasikoki, where we take care of animals and try to release them back into the wild.
Thus, I am happy with what I achieved already by working for Tasikoki. I felt like I needed some time to reflect, to meditate, to feel needed somehow and to help causes I am passionate about! And this was definitely made possible to me at Tasikoki. I dearly thank the whole team at Tasikoki for accepting me and providing me with such a rich experience! I hope we will meet again soon and that I can contribute further on more projects to save this amazing wildlife world you have in Indonesia!
By Nicolas Z., Volunteer at Tasikoki