THE TS BLOG + NEWS

How Did Tropical Salvage Begin?

› Posted June 29, 2007, by Tim O'Brien

The idea for Tropical Salvage occurred during a visit to Indonesia in 1998. Two observations encouraged the idea. First, wherever I traveled in Java, Bali, Lombok and Sumbawa, I noticed old wooden structures being replaced by new structures built from concrete and rebar. In many instances no plan existed to re-use the old beams, boards and poles. Old, hand-hewn wood deriving from mature, tight-grained, tropical hardwood trees was fueling cooking fires. The idea was also inspired by a visit to Gunung Leseur National Park, in western Sumatra. In a week of trekking, we encountered an astonishing array of wildlife, including six different species of primates, monitor lizards as long as canoes, several types of snakes, numerous exotic birds, butterflies and other small creatures, and a fantastically diverse population of enormous trees in which most of the creatures made their homes.

Along the way, we also encountered a vast area of recently clear-cut primary forest. It looked like a particularly psychotic episode of vandalism. A place that had been one of the most biologically diverse spots on earth since time immemorial had, in the course of a few months, been reduced to an eerie, silent ruin of power-saw litter. It was ominous and affecting.

The rightness and wrongness of our management of tropical forests might be aptly illustrated by looking down the line formed by a still standing primary forest abutting a clear-cut forest. The cut side appears exactly like what it is: reckless squander driven by short-sighted business interests. The forest s role as an invaluable multi-faceted resource is ended. The living side illustrates a world in which we thoughtfully and respectfully observe, interact with, derive pleasure from and learn to use the full spectrum of life s phenomena.

The experience in Sumatra was so disturbing that I couldn t passively absorb it into a complex world s expanding landscape of unsettling experience. Living in the "age of information," when science has made clear the dependency of human quality of life on eco-system integrity, asserting a more active role in contributing to tropical forest conservation seemed a useful course to follow.