It's mid-January and Annie Ang is back from her impromptu trip to the Tasikoki Wildlife Centre! With the aim of stopping the illegal wildlife trade, the centre was strategically set up in North Sulawesi, the centre and crucial trading point for animals such as the orangutans, tasiers, sunbears, pangolins and even gibbons through the region.

Tasikoki has become part of the Masarang Foundation since 2010 - and you may have heard of MF if you have followed Willie Smits' websites before. Say who?

Why, Willie Smits is the guy who showed us his efforts in restoring a rainforest! Video here (somehow video couldn't be embedded).

In October last year I brought Annie and a few other friends to a talk Willie Smits was giving at the National Geographic store in Vivocity - a "Think and Drink" organised by the Singapore International Foundation and Syinc. And what I heard from him astounded me.

His efforts for the past 30 years have been extraordinary - and this man just keeps going, and going. An avid protector of organutans and the forests they live in, he brings to life all kinds of action plans dedicated to resolving the root causes of deforestation, supports local governors and initiatives, and resynthesizes the way people deal with these problems.

Annie met with the man himself - and she'll have a guest post or two to share her experience on this trip, at the centre and actually seeing all these 'problems' we learn in class face to face. Keep close!

Anyone involved in conservation will know that poaching is a severe issue that has yet to be addressed in many countries. Animals made into commodities, perpetuated through their use as medicine, artefacts for display, or hunting enjoyment, is something that goes on still.

The first innovative approach to catch poachers I have heard of is taken by the company, Custom Robotic Wildlife.

Photo source: Wired.com

Creating remote-controlled animal decoys, they use a tag team of four-person sting operations to catch poachers in the act. One controls the robot animal, one videotapes the poaching, and the last two tackle the hunters, who then find themselves with fines, or jail time.

Are these decoys actually convincing?

Taxidermy is used to good effect here - corpses of the desired animal robot are taken and stuffed, with the wired devices hidden in parts of the animal least likely to be shot at by poachers.

Not that I could find any statistics on how successful these operations have been, but noting that they make coyotes, deer, elk, antelope and bears, it sure seems like more people are giving them a try. Of course, they also make these robots for people who just simply want to chase off annoying geese on their lawn, or to law-abiding hunters as decoys.

Interesting approach. I'm skeptical, but well, we could use all the creative approaches we can think of.