1. Why go to the Mentawai Islands ?

2. Are Mentawai Adventure trekkings safe ?

3. History of Mentawai Adventure Travel

4. Purpose, goals and mission of M. A. T.

5. Benefits to the people living there.

6. Ecological principles followed by M. A. T.

1. Why go to the Mentawai Islands ?

Located 130 kilometers off the west coasts of Sumatra, the Mentawai Islands remained isolated for thousands of years.The Mentawai Archipelago was barely touched by the Dutch colonization process and the missionaries had little success there.This allowed the inhabitants to preserve to this day an extraordinary animist and shamanist culture.
A virgin trek territory…
Siberut Island, with no tourist facilities, has been spared by mass tourism.The rare travelers who venture inside the island have to cope with the lack of transportation means, the lack of guides and porters and also with the difficulty of connecting with a Mentawai clan. It is therefore a virgin trekking territory and it is this very territory we are offering to you today, in collaboration with certain Mentawai clans. A land we wish to preserve with respect and introduce into the 21st century through responsible tourism.
…and a reliable team.
Our treks benefit from the experience of the founder of the company, who has organized expeditions in the Arctic, Africa and Asia, for over 25 years. Our Indonesian, French and English tour-leaders speak English and Indonesian, and most also speak Mentawai.Their mission is to introduce the traveler to the Mentawai culture. An English speaking Mentawai guide handles the trip’s technical organization, in partnership with a rimata, a Mentawai family chief.
Our treks offer the opportunity to share the daily life of a Mentawai village deep in the equatorial forest. The participants to our groups will learn how to manufacture a bow and arrow, how poison is used in arrows, how to find wild honey, make delicious bread from processed sawdust, catch fish in the river and many other things, amid laughter and the warmth of friendship.
Shamanist ceremonies
Our guests will discover a shamanist society still living in perfect symbiosis with Nature. Shamanism is a quest for harmony in the relationships between human beings and Nature, the clans, men and women and between individuals. It is a profound wisdom born out of the constraints of survival and is also an effective natural medecine practiced by witch doctors: the shamans.
Numerous taboos – actions that are forbidden because they threaten harmony – , especially those concerning hunting, wisely balance the use of the environment. Long and complex rituals regulate the hunting expeditions, thus limiting the damage among the monkey and wild hog populations. Other shamanist taboos regulate the relationships inside or between the clans.
The travelers may get lucky and be invited to a healing ceremony or to the ritual preparation for a hunt that are part of the daily life of the Mentawai. During these ceremonies the sikerei (shamans) call on the spirits to re-establish harmony where it is missing.
According to the Mentawai, illnesses and accidents are nothing but the symptoms of a troubled mind. Perhaps the global pollution and destruction of nature brought on by Western cultures are the very symptoms of our troubled souls?
Our guests may find a clue to the answer to this question by participating in these ceremonies. This authentic experience is a rare privilege. It goes far beyond tourism: we are speaking of a discovery, of a deeply human experience and, why not, of establishing lasting friendships between the Mentawaians and their guests.

2. Are Mentawai Adventure trekkings reasonably safe?

Physical condition
Our basic program doesn’t require any special training but a good basic physical condition is essential. The treks are suitable to every hiker. The major part of the trip is carried out on pirogues and porters take care of the luggage.
We can organize on request much more challenging expeditions.
Safety
Due to its geographical situation Siloinak Island is totally protected from a possible tsunami coming from the Indian Ocean. The waves would break on the islands of Nyang- Nyang and Siberut and would not reach Siloinak, which is known as the safest harbor in the area. Fishermen boats shelter there during storms.
Our trekking circuits, 200 meters in altitude, are too far away from the coasts to be threatened by any tsunami.
There are very few objective dangers on Siberut Island. There are almost no snakes in the Atabai area.They are rare and very eluding during the trek towards “Forest Camp” (our 17-day program, not visited during our 10-day program).
Health
The drinking and cooking water are boiled and disinfected; the dishes regularly disinfected too. The general hygienic conditions are satisfactory. There are almost no mosquitoes on Siloinak island and very few in Atabai. There is malaria however, especially at the port of Muara Siberut and in Sumatra. You should protect yourself by taking an antimalarial treatment working on quinine and chloroquine resistant stem cells. Our tour-leaders have a field medical kit, however we ask you to bring along a 7-day broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment. We suggest giving any unused medication to our health care structure or to the free religious clinic of Muara Siberut.
Reliability of our services
The Mentawai Archipelago is still virgin territory for trekking agencies because of the many organizational difficulties - especially the lack of reliable transfers by ferry and by pirogues, and the need for the Mentawai clans’ cooperation.
We have solved the first two problems by owning our own transportation means. The full cooperation of the Mentawaians comes naturally because the idea of Mentawai Adventure originated from a request for help from a clan.
That is why today we are the only structure proposing scheduled trek programs in the Mentawai Archipelago and are able to offer a very high level of reliability. The founder of the agency’s long experience in trekking and expeditions is the guarantee that all the needs of a Western clientele have been taken into account in our programs.

4. Purpose, goals and mission of Mentawai Adventure Travel.

The concept of Mentawai Adventure is to bridge, in a non intrusive way, the gap between an old traditional culture and the modern world. Mentawai Adventure is however a commercial self-financed organization and not a N.G.O. depending on private or institutional donors.
Through his experience in Africa and in South America the founder of Mentawai Adventure came to realize that institutional charity programs, although full of good intentions, very often create more problems – phenomena of acculturation and sometimes irreversible ecological damages – than they offer lasting solutions. Our organization offers economic partnerships with guaranteed short and long term profitability to the Mentawai clans. These joint ventures offer them a reliable economic future and strengthen their political, family, and psychological structures. These actions of microdevelopment are always planned by request of the clans themselves.

5. Benefits to the people living there.

Atabai School
Mentawai Adventure finances a school, which teaches young Mentawaians and sikerei the Indonesian language, arithmetic and English. Three elements that will allow them to take part in the development of tourism, have a decent income and be able to cut fair deals with the merchants of Sumatra.
Forest jobs School
Mentawai Adventure is researching the possibilities of growing high-income plants that have no negative impact on the forest ecology. For example, the cultivation and transformation of aromatic plants used by the perfume industry is a good combination of sustainable development, protection of the forest and interesting income.
The Forest jobs School markets these refined products directly to the European or American purchasing agents; guarantees prices and quantities bought from the Mentawaians; educates volunteers in cultivating and refining products; finances and builds the necessary infrastructures.
Our resort of Siloinak was built and is maintained by the Mentawaians according to their traditional techniques. Its construction, using only natural materials taken from the forest was one of the Forest jobs School’s first actions.
The goal was to allow the Mentawaians to adapt their traditional techniques to the demands of modern tourism (electric and water networks, showers, toilets, septic-tanks, energy generators…).

6. What ecological principles and practices does Mentawai Adventure Travel follow ?

In our Siloinak resort :
Energy
In the Siloinak Island resort, simple solar techniques are used to generate the necessary energy for lighting, hot water and refrigeration. Cooling and ice are produced by dilating ammoniac gases, avoiding thus the use of chlorofluorocarbon and the need for an electric generator. In the long run, the only fuel used in Siloinak will be the coconut shell of which there are numerous trees on the island.
Bathroom
All the soiled bathroom waters will be treated first with a natural septic tank system, then by an aquatic garden that only lets perfectly pure water filter back into nature. This experimental program develops cheap rustic techniques of water treatment that could bring an answer to the Third World countries’ water problem in makeshift shantytowns and rural areas that can’t afford costly sewage systems.
Protection of the wildlife and the forest
The first action of Mentawai Adventure is a turtle hatchery that buys turtle eggs from fishermen, breeds the young turtles for a few weeks in the lagoons before freeing them into the sea, increasing the chance of survival of this threatened species.
Mentawai Adventure will also participate in the preservation of the forest and the coral reefs in the Siberut Island area.