Sumatra

Sumatra review.

On march 25th, 33 students and four teachers from Catmose college left for a once in a lifetime opportunity to help and to look after Sumatran elephants and orangutan’s.

After a long 15hour flight from London to Singapore and from Singapore to Sumatra we split up into two groups, then travelled to our first location. During the trip we rode elephants and saw orangutan’s but, we also saw the horrific palm oil plantations that used to be forest and saw the conditions of the local’s toilets and the buildings where they eat, sleep and cook. It was a shocking sight and I definitely realized how lucky I am to live in England. As well as this we did a lot of walking through the dense rain forest and seeing some amazing animals, including bullet ants, a beautiful looking pheasant and the amazing Sumatran orangutans.

Our local guides, explained to us how the Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered as the forest they live in, is being cut down to make way for the plantation of palm trees. Palm trees produce fruits, that are then squashed for the juice (palm oil). The juice or otherwise known as palm oil is a multinational product. It is used in a lot of common products such as chocolate and most cosmetics. The thing I found the hardest was finding out that I’m contributing in killing the orang-utans when at home in England.

Overall this trip was amazing, we did so much and learnt so much too. This trip allowed us to understand more about the world around us and gave us an eye opener on what we could do when we are older and what needs to be done to save the most important ecosystem in the world. But, we need to act quick because its going fast and there isn’t enough charities and support to save it.

By Harry Sabberton