After three years of tree grwoing on degraded lands, farmers saw some damage on their trees. Obvious ones were holes digged by wild boar. Broken branches were most probably caused by monkeys. Scratch marks were less obvious. So we placed a few wild trap cameras in our sites, moving them to locations every month. The pictures included here are some of the evidence of the wealth of fauna which showed themselves in front of the cameras. The participating farmers also got very excited, as they said they never saw so many animals anymore. Once a week they rushed to the cameras, as they were very anxious to see what animals had passed or was hiding in their food forests over the past week. As some had a mobile phone, they would directly contact me to tell me what was on the camera. As in many cases, the monkeys are the most funny and clever animals, with various "selfies" being made. Fruits from the fruittrees are obviously very popular among the monkeys, birds and bats. But farmers do not mind. They say, that the fruits are too many anyway for the family to eat. They also give away fruits to neighbours and anyone who likes to have some, and still enough left on the trees. So let the animals also enjoy our food forests, they explained to us. The greatest evidence is the foot print of the Sumatran tiger, which roams around in the food forest every now and than. The tiger even walked around our hut at night a few times. However, we couldnot make a picture. The farmers explained that when the tiger arrives, do not move, as any sound would make it clear for the tiger where we are. Now, the tiger does smell us, but does not know we are actually inside.

Just have a look at this selection of pictures taken with the wild trap camera.