In 1998 Gary visited Indonesia to gather references for his first drawing of orang-utans.  He flew to Pangkalan Bun in Central Kalimantan on the island of Borneo. His partner, through EIA, had already started working to protect Tanjung Puting National Park which was being heavily, illegally logged. Two years later, two activists working with his partner were kidnapped by the local timber baron’s thugs in this outback town. This really was an adventure!

They travelled up the Sekonyer River, passing many rafts of logs being stolen from this Biosphere Reserve. For ten days they watched and photographed wildlife from their small boat or klotok and, of course, they spent most of their time with orang-utans.

Tanjung Puting is home to 9 primates including Asia’s only great ape – the orang-utan. It is also home to the extraordinary proboscis monkey with its long nose which gives it its local name – Dutch monkey. At that time the locals thought the Dutch settlers had large noses, which compared to them was certainly true. They saw proboscis monkeys, gibbons and macaques.

GARY WITH ORANG-UTAN ORPHANS  PHOTO: DAVE CURREY

At Camp Leakey, a research area within the Park originally set up by Dr Birute Galdikas, Gary observed rehabilitated orang-utans at very close hand. Many orang-utans are orphaned when their mother is killed and they are snatched for pets, or when their rainforest habitat is destroyed by loggers or fire. Birute has released hundreds of orang-utans back into the wild. Some hang around the camp to meet the occasional tourist and join in “feeding time” when rangers give bananas and other food to any that appear from the forest each day.

Gary and Dave met with Birute for a day and listened as she explained the problems faced by Tanjung Puting and the orang-utans. She was also impressed by Gary’s drawings and forty prints of his orang-utan drawing were donated to the Orangutan Foundation to support their work.

LARGE MALE ORANG-UTAN

Gary became particularly attached to a young feisty male orang-utan named Gistok. On one memorable occasion Gistok picked up an ant and offered it to Gary by pushing it up to his mouth. Gary, a vegetarian, refused it; Gistok looked around, thought for a while before picking up a leaf and offering that instead.

Not long after visiting the Park, Gary heard that Gistok, a regular at the Camp, had disappeared. It was feared and seemed likely he had been killed by a logger. Even when Gary visited, chainsaws could be heard from Camp Leakey.

Plea for the Rainforest, a drawing of a young orang-utan looking over its mother’s head, evocatively reflects Gary’s experiences with orang-utans. Both disturbing and touching, Gary is the first to admit being close to one of our closest relatives had a profound effect on him. “You really do feel you’re looking at a wise old, unshaven relative” he says. “Someone to be respected, not to be made homeless or orphaned.”

Gary dedicated Plea for the Rainforest to Gistok.

PLEA FOR THE RAINFOREST 1999, PENCIL DRAWING