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Turtles! Our Marine Ambassadors are Unwell
14 – 18 May 2011
S20 02.060 E148 13.917 – Bowen, Queensland, Australia
About a year ago, we wrapped up our epic 18-month Coral Triangle photo expedition with our last leg in Timor Leste. We finished a long photographic marathon and yes, we were eager to finally see the end of it and go home. Now, a year of rest and intense office work later, we’re missing it. Only upon re-reading the archived blog entries am I reminded that we really did it.
When we were asked by Charlie Stevens of WWF Australia to photograph a distressing calamity – that of our marine ambassadors, the green turtles, sick with a debilitating fibropapilloma virus along the Bowen coast of North Queensland, Charlie didn’t wait long for our answer.
Dr. Leo Foyle holds on to Roxy the green turtle. Roxy has a severe case of fibropapilloma virus and has been in the JCU lab for many weeks undergoing observation and care.
By mid-May, we were ready to hit the road. We packed our camping gear, cameras and underwater housings and drove to Bowen to join a two-day turtle research activity led by the Indigenous Gudjuda landowners, James Cook University marine virologists, Cardwell Indigenous Girringun Rangers, Sea Turtle Foundation, WWF Australia, the Bowen community and many volunteers. There are many questions left unanswered about this horrific virus and we were all there to try to help the researchers and scientists gather more data.
Bowen was buzzing with energy. The traditional Gudjuda (Saltwater People) elders welcomed all of us before the hard work of catching turtles and gathering scientific data began.
Turtle research started with catching a turtle by turtle rodeo.
Chris Muriata, Indigenous Ranger from Girringun, Cardwell with his newly caught green turtle.
Charlie Stevens was the turtle jumper on our boat. It was all new to him but he was determined! For a novice, he did well catching two green turtles.
JCU volunteer Ron Goodwin tags and measures the green turtle Charlie Stevens caught.
By late morning, the turtles caught were brought to the mobile lab by the beach with the marine virologists assisted by a battalion of volunteers. The tide was very low and the beach by then was wide and far from the shore – this didn’t stop everyone pitching in to carry the heavy turtles.
Lacie Hansen daughter of a Girringun Indigenous ranger from Cardwell carries a green turtle to shore.
Bowen Surf Lifesaver Club Captain Trevor Armstrong, Sea Turtle Foundation Project Manager Julie Traweek & JCU volunteers carry a big green turtle to shore.
And the scary efficient data gathering was underway. The turtles were calmed down with their heads covered with a cloth pouch. They were weighed, measured and photographed.
Dr. Ellen Ariel, marine virologist from JCU photographs a green turtle with Lydia Gibson of WWF Australia assisting.
Doctors/senior lecturers and students from JCU’s School of Veterinary & Biomedical Sciences took blood, skin and shell samples to find out whether these turtles were exposed to heavy metals or other pollutants. Water and sediment samples were also taken from the bay where the turtles were caught.
Dr. Ellen Ariel, marine virologist from JCU along with her Bowen volunteer 9yr old Yadi Dodd pick up a green turtle to gather scientific data from it.
Dr. Ellen Ariel, JCU senior lecturer looks at a green turtle's skin sample to gather DNA and other scientific data from it.
Traditional Owner and Gudjuda Elder Jim Gaston expertly holds a green turtle. He was one of the original instigator of turtle rodeo as a conservation measure.
From May to August, a different calamity arose. A massive number of turtles along the Queensland coast were dying of starvation. The loss of sea grass beds after Cyclone Yasi and the floods have wiped out the food source of turtles and dugongs. There is a turtle crisis and turtle rehabilitation centres all along the Queensland coast are in need of help and support. WWF Australia started a Sick Turtle Appeal which ends on the 30th of September. Please please help with your donation.
Posted in Biodiversity, Climate Change, Marine conservation, Turtles 8 Comments
Timor Leste Cowboys from the Maubissi Highlands
14 – 16 August 2010
S8 83.872 E125 60.340 – Maubisse
Highland Maubisse was some six hours drive from Dili. It sounds like a long trip uphill but we stopped a lot along the way. One scene that definitely made us pause was the painful sight of a forest gone and the erosion that took its place.
High up in the East Timor mountains, passing road curve upon road curve, this landslide scene is sadly a common sight
Once we arrived in Maubisse, we were instantly charmed by the place as it was utterly quaint. We scheduled our trip that we got there during the weekend – Sunday market day being the highlight when people from far distant places walked or rode their ponies to the market. We didn’t come prepared for the cold and I felt chilled to the bones being up 1500 m above sea level! Brrrr, it was 14℃ in the early mornings.
Early morning fog covered the valley from the vantage point of Pousada Guest House - the place to be in Maubissi
Timor-Leste is one of only two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in the Coral Triangle, the other being the Philippines. I attended the first mass that Sunday morning at 7:30. The guest house where we stayed was conveniently right in front of the cathedral. During mass, the Timorese women and girls reminded me of Manila circa 1970s, when conservative feminine females all went to church in dresses and veils. They still do in East Timor! It was kinda nice to see a place where time stood but with a hint of the modern.
When we left the church, the second mass was about to commence and the next choir members quickly huddled outdoors for a photo opportunity as this nun, their choir director snapped a picture with her mobile phone
Then we walked to the market hoping to see all the cowboys we were told so much about. As these were Asian cowboys . . .
Instead of horses there were ponies
Instead of wild bulls to lasso, there were fighting cocks to kill each other. The buzz and energy of the public market captured the essence of Maubisse. It was wonderful. And the characters we met along the way . . . phenomenal faces . . . I had to be really bold to stop them and ask for their portraits to be taken! Yogi never does the hard jobs . . .
How beautiful is this man?
Asian cowboy with glasses. So many men had fighting cocks in their arms. It was like part of a man's dress code . . .
He reigned over his produce of tobacco and betelnut and he graciously posed for us
And the finale, a pretty young girl. The future generation of Timor Leste!
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Posted in Coral Triangle, Culture, Ecotourism, Timor-Leste 3 Comments
A Day in The East Timorese Life
8 – 19 August 201
S8 33.173 E125 31.634 – Dili
S8 83.872 E125 60.340 – Maubisse
Making Salt
When we were told days before that we were going to a place where salt was made, we imagined large, massive salt fields by the sea. There will be a lot of white ponds with salt crystals which could be quite photogenic – or so we thought. Then our driver signalled we were there. We looked out the window and saw a grey, muddy empty place with huts scattered here and there with no one around. It looked like a dry ghost town. And like in a movie, I was waiting for tumbleweeds to pass by . . .
Where are the people in the neighbourhood?
For a good 10 minutes, it was like we entered the twilight zone – tinu ninu ninu ninu – we were in another planet. All around us were mounds or little hills of hard mud and we just didn’t get it. Where was the salt? Our driver didn’t speak much English, so sign language and the little Bahasa we knew was how we got by — it didn’t get us very far. As we walked around to try to understand the place and the mysterious salt making process, it was when we peered into a hut that we finally understood. Someone was inside boiling brine. Salt was made in the age old traditional manner. Sodium chloride or NaCl was from brine boiled in a wide open pan with fire, constantly fuelled by dry palm fronds.
We shall endeavour to show the process of making salt – a most ancient preservative and the magic ingredient that brings out the flavour in food.
Some of these mounds have, on top of it, a container contraption where salt water is poured
Salt water is taken from the mangrove backyard when the tide is high. So I guess this is where the mud connection comes in, as mangroves are highly muddy environments
Gravity feed trickles brine down from the top of the mound to this dugout log situated at ground level
Then the open steel pan boils the brine for 8 hours. The caretaker man constantly throws into the fire highly flammable palm fronds and he scoops out impurities from the top of the boiling brine. 8 hours! No wonder hardly anyone was there to do this long hot job!
A kilogram of salt is just a little more than US 50¢ !!! How could they survive earning this little?!
From the coast we travelled to the highlands of Maubisse – 1,500 meters above sea level with temperature ranging from 14 – 19°C. There we saw the much more lucrative industry of East Timor – that of growing of coffee arabica beans for the export market. The organically grown high quality arabica coffee beans are supplied to Starbucks which in turn packages it as Arabian Mocha Timor. Starbucks has described it as a perfect balance between the clean, fresh floral notes of washed Timor coffees, and the wild and exotic berry, cocoa, spice flavors of naturally processed Arabian Mocha Sanani. It’s a complex blend with up front berry notes, medium body and a clean finish. Coffees from East Timor are washed and have acidity, though not as pronounced as Latin American coffee. Coffee from East Timor often has an herbal taste quality as well — not bad considering these crops were devastated about a decade ago when Indonesian militia destroyed much of East Timor’s coffee industry after the 1999 referendum.
Arabica coffee bushes are given shade under these massive acacia trees
When the coffee beans are cheery red, they are ready for hand picking
The coffee industry is labour intensive giving jobs to many East Timorese
The freshly picked bright red coffee bean will undergo a drying period before they are sold to the mills
Not as attractive as when they were fresh, these high value coffee beans undergo many drying stages before they are ready for delivery. The drying stage is also a crucial step in determining the taste and aroma of these highly sought after produce
In Dili we saw the packing of freshly roasted coffee beans. Can you imagine the beautiful smell this place had?
And again we felt like we traveled a time warp when entering this warehouse where prime coffee beans were packed by the kilogram
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Posted in Coral Triangle, Culture, Ecotourism, Timor-Leste 4 Comments
Coastal Life in East Timor
8 – 19 August 201
S8 33.173 E125 31.634 – Dili
We hardly knew anything about Timor-Leste as we plunged in head first to photograph it. Upon arriving at the airport, we immediately noticed UN presence. There were a lot of men in uniform and loads of vehicles with the UN logo. And yet we were told, their presence had shrunk considerably the past few years as they are slowly pulling out of East Timor. Peace was finally at hand. A short history of this place can be read in a website called East Timor Now and this website gives a pretty good overview of the country now through pictures and some good background information.
I was born and raised in the Philippines and I felt a stronger kinship here in East Timor I had not felt in other parts of the Coral Triangle – first because of the Catholic faith and second because we too struggled and freed ourselves from many years of oppression. The efforts this country is doing to raise itself from the ruins of its recent past is so admirable and it is heartwarming to see the world respond. They recently finished their 2nd Tour de Timor and are, at this very moment, having their inaugural Timor-Leste Underwater Photo Competition to bring in attention to its splendid marine life for it is, after all, the 6th country of the Coral Triangle!
The third largest ship in the U.S. Navy Fleet, this impossibly humungous USNS Mercy hospital ship was in Dili for a week to provide humanitarian and civic assistance to the people of East Timor. Their medical staff from Operation Smile performed cleft lip surgery to many during the ship’s visit. And at low tide, many Timorese women and children came out to the coast to glean for marine life they can bring home to eat
Gleaning is done every low tide when the shallow reefs are easily accessible for people to walk out and gather marine life along the way till the edge of the reef. The favorite targets are bivalves, gastropods, crustacean, seaweed, sea cucumbers, octopus, and small fish.
This boy shows off his what he and his friends gleaned after half an hour of turning over coral heads. They arm themselves with long stainless steel rods to poke out unwilling-to-die marine creatures deep inside their holes
With two steel rods and a basket, this woman picked and prodded the coral rocks until she got what she wanted. This went on for hours until it was too dark for her to see . . .
All along the coast of Dili, gleaning activities were happening. Wonder if there are any marine life left . . .
On our first day, we saw this man throw his cast net at low tide by the coastal mangroves. For 16 months, Yogi had been looking and looking all over Asia Pacific for a cast net fisherman! And there he was, in Dili.
And in some areas along the esplanade, fishermen and vendors displayed and sold their fish by the road where cars would stop and buy what they needed to take home for dinner.
The giant trevally lorded over much smaller catch of scads and mackerels
By the coast going west, we saw how fish was sold, East Timor style
How much for a bundle of fish?
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Posted in Coral Triangle, Culture, Ecotourism, Fisheries, Timor-Leste 1 Comment
People of Timor-Leste
8 – 19 August 201
S8 33.173 E125 31.634 – Dili
Sometime April this year, we attended ADEX in Singapore. Yogi & I were invited by John Thet, publisher of Asian Geographic Magazine as well as Asian Diver and ScubaDiver Australasia, to give a series of public slideshows on The Coral Triangle. In one of the days when we were gallivanting around the halls, a well dressed man in a grey suit made a beeline for Yogi and said, “I have a personally signed letter from President José Ramos-Horta of Timor Leste for you!” ”HUH?! Say that again? I’m sorry, I didn’t quite get that.” replied Yogi. So, our now good friend Sean Ferguson-Borrel repeats what he said and brought us to his booth in ADEX, hands over the letter and said, “it would be an honour for Timor-Leste to have Mr. Freund over as the Ambassador to the Environment and to judge the inaugural Timor-Leste Underwater Photo Competition this coming October.” WELL, needless to say, we were bowled over. You don’t hear that everyday.
But was it fateful serendipity or just random coincidence that we had to go to Timor-Leste to finish photographing the 6th and last country of the Coral Triangle for this expedition?! The newest nation on earth needed to be shown and we were there for almost two weeks to photograph it. Timor-Leste is a small country right beside its border of Indonesian West Timor. Due to its turbulent recent history with its neighbouring country, they now have a very young population left. Close to half of East Timorese are younger than 15 years old, and a lot of its mid adult population of age 40 up were eerily and conspicuously not there. That said, we still got to see many older adults and some amazing culture. For a young nation, they have a pretty old and thriving living culture and this blog entry is a tribute to the People of Timor-Leste.
A traditional headgear called kaibauk adorn this man's head as he performs a dance with his group in the side street of Comoro to welcome a religious relic coming down from the mountains
A regal looking performer. She had a worn out looking brass gong that made the dancers dance to her beat
A woman plays her well pounded drum or babadok as they perform non-stop one Sunday afternoon in the streets of Comoro
This man holds up his sword or surik and has a smile in his face all the time that he was dancing
Then, we went on a day trip out of Dili one day and saw the countryside. Our last stop was a place called Maubara where there is an refurbished Portuguese Fort and cafe where they served some great locally grown coffee. A funny character in traditional garb walked about but he refused to have his picture taken. But when we went to the public market, there were loads of people dressed to the nines, Timorese style. Again we were serendipitously at the right place and perfectly timed. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão was in town to talk to the people of Maubara! We brought out our black cloth and had an instant studio amongst the vegetables and chickens. Here are some stunning characters:
Hand woven clothes called tais, each district had their own traditional design and this tais is distinctly from Maubara
And some beautiful children. They sat for their portrait in Maubara (West of Dili) after performing for the Prime Minister Xanana Gusmão with drums wedged in their armpit
Great faces etched with character
Now how about that for a portrait?! Clucking rooster gave the final touch to this man's presence
When we saw this man, we knew he not ordinary. He was too creative looking to be ordinary!
Man with the orange headdress was the pied piper of these young performers!
And in amongst these young performers were beautiful maidens carrying on their centuries old tradition of dress and music
And one day we were invited to a special place called Ba Futuru, a non profit development organisation that help transform lives of Timorese children through peace education. The girls in the group were performing their traditional dance and here is a little glimpse of that day:
The smallest performer in the group, she nonetheless held her own and hit her drums in deep concentration
The vision of Ba Futuru which in Tetun, means “For the Future.” is to transform mistrust and violence into peace and self-directed growth by supporting the people of Timor-Leste to engage in creating a positive future for themselves, their families and their communities.
Posted in Coral Triangle, Culture, Ecotourism, Photography, Timor-Leste 2 Comments
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