When Women Work

Contributed by Samhita T Rao, Vice-President with a multinational bank in India

One of the perks of working in organizations like HSBC is it is not always work as usual – I was recently selected as a volunteer to work on an environmental project in the rainforests of Northern Australia. And the experience of being in mostly women dominated team was something to be remembered for life. Here’s the story: [If you have any adventurous stories to share, share those at ajay@ajayjain.com]

I was absolutely ecstatic when I was selected to be a volunteer of an environmental project sponsored by the Earthwatch Institute (my company sponsors volunteers to Earthwatch projects as a part of their CSR initiatives). The Earthwatch Institute engages people world wide in scientific field research and education to promote the understanding and action necessary for a sustainable environment.

When I first read the project briefing for the “Rainforests of Northern Australia” (the project that I was assigned to), my first reaction was shock. The extensive list of health hazards in a rainforest environment read like so many different ways to meet my maker or at least suffer an excruciatingly painful time. The hazards were amazingly varied and ranged across the plant and animal kingdoms, with a separate section on infectious diseases! It was as standard as getting stung by stinging trees that literally immobilize you with their silica based tubules of poison, to parasitic ticks which cause intense itching, headaches and localized paralysis if not treated on time. Then came the cassowaries- the “mascot” of the Australian rainforest, a large flightless bird that can disembowel a human being from top to bottom in one single stroke of its sharply clawed feet. Last but not the least were the 100 kg bundle of solid angry muscle- wild pigs! The advice I received in the briefing was not very reassuring to say the least- an excerpt “If you see some (wild pigs) coming make a loud noise to let them know that you are there. If the pig, does get aggressive climb a tree or rock and hope for the best, screaming and waving your arms may also help (unless you’re still climbing the tree))”

Well I shall say no more.

Needless to say, I said a little prayer, hoped for the best and headed out to an incredible experience in the Australian rainforests in October 2006.

My project was a part of the “Rainforest to Reef” Conservation Research Initiative (CRI). The volunteers selected for this particular Earthwatch project would assist the local environmental scientists in understanding the rainforest ecosystems. The magnificent tropical rainforests of the coast and mountain Tablelands have been fragmented since the occupation of the area by Europeans 120 years ago. The settlers felled trees for timber and cleared land for settlements and agriculture. The loss of rainforest continuity had radically altered many forest processes including movements of fruit-eating animals, which consequently altered the dispersal of many of the rainforest trees and other plants. We (the Earthwatch volunteers) worked with an experienced research team to investigate the habits of diverse fruit-eating animals and to find out how far they disperse seeds and how reductions in their numbers affect rainforest processes on an overall landscape scale.

The rainforests that we were going to work in were in the northern part of Australia known as the “Wet Tropics World Heritage Area”, which is one of the most biologically diverse regions in the world. We were based in Atherton Tablelands (set just inland from the city of Cairns), a largely rural area in Northern Queensland that was surrounded by extensive rainforest cover.

The two week experience turned out to be physically grueling but what an experience! As Earthwatch volunteers tracking the fruit eating birds, we engaged in a variety of activities every day. On my first day I was with the group who “cut trails” across the rainforest, which meant that we trekked across the rainforest for what seemed like hours and marked the trails with different color ribbons indicating the directions. We trekked across giant fallen logs, across the steep inclines of the rainforest strewn with colorful plant litter and tiny insects and across little streams that appeared out of nowhere. Radio- telemetry on fruit-eating birds like catbirds, bowerbirds, riflebirds, wompoo fruit doves, pied currawongs and honeyeaters was one of the project activities. We were located in many of the “stations” spread out across the rainforest when we did telemetry. There would be no soul in sight and I was alone in my patch of the rainforest with just the trees for company, taking readings every 5 minutes. Settling into a rainforest station where we would be working on our own for hours together, meant identifying a tree which we could climb in case a cassowary or a wild pig decided to visit us! Focal tree watching was a favourite activity as we basically lay down on a banana chair and watched birds! But this is not as easy as it sounds as this requires a lot of concentration and we had to note down the bird movements and the bird’s fruit-eating activities from the time it alights on the tree till it flies away. As we had a scarcity of fruit-eating birds living in our part of the rainforest, we did some “mist netting”. This involved spreading some very fine “mist nets” in order to catch fruit eating birds. If the birds we caught were of a fruit-eating variety then radio tracking sensors were gently attached to them by our research scientists. We subsequently tracked the movements of these birds in the rainforest by doing radio-telemetry. (The birds could easily free themselves off these sensors in a couple of weeks’ time.) The joy when we landed a bird in our net and then again holding it in our hand is an indescribable experience!

A team dominated by women: We were a diverse nine member team with volunteers from the Netherlands, UK, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Turkey, Australia and India, and the best part was that the team was dominated by women! So apart from slogging it out in the rainforest – we bonded over many things- and shared experiences and stories. We realized that though all of us were from different countries and of varying ages, as women we faced the same issues the world over  For example we had Mieke from the Netherlands religiously styling her hair every morning without fail, getting ready for yet another exciting day in the rainforest. The highlight of our evenings was the dinner of course! We had an extensive guest list of resident scientists of CSIRO who would want to sample the heavenly delights of our cooking  The rule was that each country would present their cuisine every day. We had teams of two doing the honors each day and invariably it was the women who cooked and the men who “helped”! The experiences in the rainforest have bonded us for life and these experiences have been great as well as “slimy”! Well, you guessed it, no rainforest experience is complete without experiencing the delights of the local leeches crawling on you!! By the time we completed the project, we had a sizeable body of leech literature to entertain us. I particularly remember one rainy afternoon when we were huddled together under the blue tarpaulin (our “camp”) , with little sticks in our hands constantly checking every part of our clothing for leeches, whilst spouting “leech poems” to each other ! A sample of the leech poems that were created are attached below, by our resident poet on leeches, Beth Callen from the UK:

Ode to a leech (by William Leechspeare)
I wandered lonely as a leech
That forages on the forest floor
Hunting for volunteer blood to suck
For ever, ever more.

The leech’s lament
Oh, woe is me!
The days are gone
When, before the return
Of the cruel sun
We could drop off branches
Onto their heads
Or lie in waiting
On the forest’s bed
For volunteers
To trample past
So we could break
Our twelve month’s fast

TheVery Thought of a Leech is Ode-erous!
The thought of wishing to see a poem like a
Leech would make me pucker,
I personally would not even give a passing
Salutation to such an evil little sucker

It is rather incredible that all of us emerged out of these experiences without an injury, sting or disembowelment –which just went to show that this Earthwatch project had 9 incredibly lucky people in it!

To conclude this project was one of the most fun and amazing experience that we as individuals ever experienced – and I am all set to do this all over again- leech or no leech!!