We spent the day working with the often overlooked sunbears. With the eyes of the world on the orangutans, the kind and gentle sun bears do not receive the attention they deserve. Before coming to Samboja, I also did not know very much about the sun bears. Thanks to our new friend, Meike, a 32 year old German who is currently working at Samboja, we now have a new appreciation for this animal. Today was a very important day with the Sun Bears. Two of the bears were transferred out of the smaller quarantine cages and were brought to another location to get ready for entry into the larger outdoor cages. These bears have spent the last 5 years in very small cages and now are two days from their first taste of “freedom” in their lives. It’s quite an incredible story and I’ve decided to document this story with video and see where it takes me. I’m currently sitting here on the top level of the lodge and am watching orangutans on the islands enjoying the cool evening by playing and swinging on the trees and enrichment facilities. A family of wild boar just walked down the road and up the trail near the sun bear facility. Off in the distance, the sun bears are also enjoying the late afternoon. Yesterday a gibbon was desperately trying to get our attention with his amazing call, we hasn’t been back today. Willie Smits the founder of Samboja Lesari was the hit of the 2009 TED conference this past week for this work with Samboja Lestari and what has been called “the greatest reforestation project on the planet.” It is quite amazing. Environmental conservation isn’t always galmorous. Today we scrubbed the sun bear cages with brushes and built hammoks for the bears still in quarantine. It was hard work but worth the effort when you see the bears go back into a clean cage. Tomorrow we are heading to “Kilometer 23” to see a sun bear education center built by a Dutch woment and her husband. I’m very curious to learn more about the plight of this small bear. Next week we will be meeting with the head of BOS International to talk about our NPO and hopefully Wille will be coming here soon. We are also planning a trip to the coal mine near here, a palm oil plantation as well as a day trip to some primary rain forest near here where the first BOS (Borneo Orangutan Survival) orangutans were released. I have a feeling that our month here will go by extremely fast. We are still discussing the feasibility of bringing students here. It has a ton of potential; we just need the green light from the higher ups. This is an amazing planet and being in the middle of nature helps remind me of how incredible and precious our short time on this planet is. Looking down on the orangutan island, I see that most of the orangutans have made their nests and settled down for the evening. I think I’ll do the same.