In 2015, the day after graduating from myself and a small team of young conservationists, photographers and filmmakers from Indonesia and the UK set-out on a journey to the deep jungles of North Kalimantan, Borneo. The expedition was named the Borneo RAVE - a Rapid Assessment Visual Expedition - and for 10 days, we lived on the banks of a river in the middle of the jungle, with no connection to the outside world, finding and photographing all the wildlife we could find!
The protection of this pristine primary lowland forest is managed by the local Oma’lung tribe of Kenyah Dayak. Their connection to the forest is incredible, and we were very lucky to live alongside them and reap the benefits of their guidance during our stay. Sadly not all areas of rainforest are so well protected; in neighbouring areas locals who had given in to developers had lost so much of their home, their wildlife, their culture, and way of life.
We saw for ourselves the sad impacts of deforestation and littering throughout our journey to the province, which was made especially clear when traveling by boat. The locals we met had decided to use other means to bring income to their area, such as eco-tourism, and our job was to capture images of the incredible species and environment to aid efforts in conserving their Tane’ Olen - the protected forest.
