Jasmina McKibben is a photographer, filmmaker, whitewater guide and kayaker, certified divemaster, and most recently, a wildlife documentarian in the depths of the Peruvian wilderness. For the past three months she has been working alongside biologist Sean McHugh for the Rainforest Partnership, an international NGO dedicated to preserving hundreds of thousands of acres of South American rainforest by documenting vulnerable endemic species and enabling local communities to create sustainable economies. During their three month study, Jasmina and Sean were able to discover multiple species, including some previously undocumented in this region. Here she shares a personal essay on growing up adventurously, pursuing her dreams, and her passion for preserving wildlife.

It is an odd moment when you come to the realization that you are a foreigner in your country of birth, country of residency, and country of citizenship, but feel an equal attachment to each place. This is not to say that it is an unpleasant epiphany, but this intersection of cultural identities can certainly cause you to question who you are.

I was born in Indonesia to American parents, and have since lived in five countries: Indonesia, China, Bolivia, Indonesia again, the United States, and Peru. I have United States citizenship, but did not spend more than two consecutive months in my “passport country” until I began attending university. The language I feel most comfortable using is English, but I am fluent in Spanish. However, I do not speak the language of my birth country (Indonesia), in spite of having spent the majority of my life living there. My explanation requires a lot of elaboration, and people find it overwhelming or confusing, so I typically use Cady Heron from Mean Girls as a comparison to my cultural identity.

This contradictory clashing and meshing of cultures is a fortunate privilege that I was afforded, and it has permitted me to experience a wide variety of pristine natural environments. My passion for exploring nature began in Beijing, China (not exactly a pinnacle of wilderness, I know), when my parents took us camping every weekend from Friday to Sunday. These weekly camping trips occurred year round, throughout all seasons, as an escape from the smog-filled city of 21 million people, and became a staple for my family. This trend continued in Bolivia, with my parents loading us into the back of a 1982 Toyota Land Cruiser, driving up to a campsite at 16,000 feet, and having to leave when my sister and I began hallucinating due to altitude sickness. Such were the activities of our childhood.

To any outsider, it seems evident that wildlife documentary and conservation would be an obvious career choice, based upon my upbringing. However, my sixteen-year old self, who wore mini skirts and high heels to school, would have strongly disagreed. During the two years I spent as a rebel without a cause, I had a vague idea that I enjoyed photography and making films, but had not yet accepted my passion for nature and wildlife, mainly due to the fact that it was something my parents liked. I wanted to be different than the teachers that had raised me, and aspired to be in a heavy metal band, even though the only music I sang was as part of an a capella group. As many teenagers are apt to do, I sought to protest the identity I had inherited and cultivated, simply for the sake of being different.

Although I fantasized about a job that would allow me to continue traveling the world, I knew that teaching in international schools, as my parents had done, was not the correct avenue. I was passionate about marine fauna, due to my background as a scuba diver, but failed to do well in many of my high school science classes. As a student who participated in “glee club” and competitive public speaking, it was clear that becoming a marine biologist was the incorrect manner in which to pursue a career. This is how I came to understand that a creative vocation was what best suited me.

I knew that I was passionate about marine conservation, with a vague enjoyment for film and photography, but I had little knowledge of how to forge a career out of those facts. This lead me to take a risk that only a sixteen-year old with little financial understanding would; to go into debt obtaining a fine arts degree. My time in university was spent further questioning my choices, and jumping through academic hoops that seemed pointless to somebody aspiring to be a wildlife documentarian. My jobs during this time were an important tool to understand what goals I wanted to accomplish, and also what I did not want to do. I worked as a raft guide and whitewater photographer, which produced a passionate love for kayaking that I would never have previously imagined. Hours spent photographing boaters made me realize that a style of photography existed outside of a studio, and that it was possible to make money taking pictures. I also worked as a restaurant hostess, standing in the high heels I had previously adored, earning more money than I did as a raft guide, but despising every moment. Six months of my life were spent working as a club cocktail waitress and making more money than many of my friends with master’s degrees, but also isolated and sleeping primarily during the day, interacting with few people outside of my nocturnal job. Experiencing a wide variety of odd jobs helped me to refine my skill set, earn quick money, and vow that I would not continue in the industries that I hated. In the extremely competitive field of wildlife documentary and conservation, it was inevitable that I would work some undesirable jobs while pursuing it, and my aversion to certain industries was instrumental in providing me with the motivation to keep searching for positions in my intended field.

Working as a cocktail waitress may be one of the more unorthodox ways in which somebody has funded their Divemaster course, but because of it, I saved enough money to move to Komodo National Park and pursue this dream. I spent the first three months of 2018 living on a ship in Komodo, diving almost every day, and realized that I had to continue to make this dream possible for myself.

Upon my return to the US after being unlawfully detained by corrupt Indonesian immigration officials, I applied for various Divemaster jobs and failed to secure any of them. I applied for waitressing and bartending jobs and was rejected by those too. I was running out of money, and my momentum after such a fantastic dive course was waning. I had planned to move out of my house by the end of July, but it was May, and my only potential job prospect entailed a brief discussion with a biologist that I had become acquainted with, who thought it would be beneficial to have a wildlife documentarian accompany him on a study being conducted in Peru in the fall. It was far from a guarantee, and although it sounded like a dream come true, I was hesitant to allow myself to believe that such a thing could be possible.

When I found out that Rainforest Partnership wanted me to accompany Sean McHugh to Junín, Peru, and work as a wildlife documentarian on his mammal study, I felt that everything had finally fallen into place. After working back-to-back jobs outside of my desired industry for almost two years, I felt as if this was the “big break” that people so often refer to. Making this opportunity count and producing high-quality work was imperative for me.

The area itself was extremely remote, and the most difficult terrain I have ever experienced – imagine hiking uphill out of Gorilla rapid (on the Green River, NC) for five hours, but there is no existing trail and you are cutting it with a machete yourself, while also trying to look for animals and capture them on camera. However, the difficult nature of this Peruvian tropical montane forest (or cloud forest) is also what has allowed it to remain so pristine, harboring incredible biodiversity and endemic species. Through a very specific combination of equatorial proximity and altitude, making up less than 2.5% of the world’s forests, cloud forest is able to exist, and the species that inhabit it are incredibly well adapted to thrive in this
environment.

The Spectacled bear (Tremarctos ornatus) is a perfect example, having evolved over thousands of years to perform a seasonal migration to the cloud forest, from the paramo/pampas it inhabits during other parts of the year. During this migration, the bears feast on bromeliads and fruit high in the trees, utilizing their incredible claws to climb with ease. Other species in this forest, such as the primates, exhibit an equally astonishing level of specialization to this environment. The Black-faced black spider monkey (Ateles chamek) is a frugivorous brachiator, meaning that they swing from tree to tree and eat fruit. Over time, they have evolved to lose their front thumbs, with only four digits on their front hands, allowing them to brachiate more swiftly and efficiently to find fruit. These fruit-bearing trees are fundamental to their survival, and A. chamek has evolved specifically to locate as much fruit as possible, but if the trees begin to disappear, which has occurred over the past five decades, the species is put at immediate risk of extinction.

Human exploitation is quickly putting both flora and fauna under great pressure, and driving many species into smaller ranges as their habitats are rapidly destroyed. It is of the utmost urgency that we rush to protect the environments that these species inhabit, in order to ensure their survival. The CEO of Rainforest Partnership, Niyanta Spelman, often says that “you cannot protect what you do not know”, which is why we were sent by her to study this area in the first place. However, we have merely scratched the surface of what exists in Junín, and what has been discovered indicates the integrity of this magnificent system as a whole. If we were able to find 25 species of mammal in less than three months, four of which include primates not previously known to the area and the Spectacled bear, we can only imagine what else is left to be discovered. However, in a society that is rapidly destroying these environments, we must act now in order to preserve them so that future generations can continue to study and discover the hidden natural treasures that lie within these forests. Observing and working with such charismatic animals in the wild has always been a goal of mine, and my experiences with species from Peru and Komodo have been the privilege of a lifetime. Although there were periods of time where I struggled as I worked outside of my intended field, it all melts away when I am able to work toward the protection of these species and their habitats.

For more information or to donate to the Rainforest Partnership, visit rainforestpartnership.org. For more of Jasmina’s work, visit https://www.instagram.com/jasminamckibben/.