Seeking sanctuary

When Samantha Barnes visited Borneo in 2019 for a month-long ‘voluntourism’ holiday, the endangered orangutans and sun bears captured her heart. The 23-year-old Aussie is still there.

- BELINDA JACKSON

Samantha Barnes was fresh out of high school when she decided to take a gap year ahead of a university degree in conservation. Her path led to Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo – tropical, exotic and well off the beaten track. She volunteered at a wildlife sanctuary for a month in late 2019, before returning in January 2020 for another stint. Then the pandemic took hold of the world. Was she stuck or would she stay?

“It was a bit of both,” admits Sam, who has now spent three and a half years at the Matang Wildlife Centre, a 40-minute drive from Sarawak’s capital, Kuching.

The wildlife sanctuary she has grown to love turns no animal away – not a crocodile, nor a sun bear, nor a bearcat, nor even a 100kg male orangutan. The government-owned centre is home base to Project Borneo, a UK-funded Malaysian conservation group founded in 2006 to help orangutans. Its rescue operations have expanded to include many of Borneo’s endangered species, and volunteers from around the world come to work with the animals, usually staying for two to four weeks.

Sam has obviously stayed much longer, and today the 23-year-old helps coordinate the volunteer program, through which people muck in to help these animals – many rescued from the illegal pet trade, many endangered. Chores include everything from cleaning out dens to making puzzles and food packs to challenge and remind the many hand-reared animals of their natural instincts. Cuddling baby animals is strictly off the menu, with a no-contact policy to prevent transmission of diseases from humans to animals, and to avoid the disruption of a constant stream of new carers.