Unstoppable Sutari Part 1 | Part 2 | Jungle Camp Cook Sutari shares tips After conquering all of Malaysia's high mountain peaks and others in the region, this adventurer turned nature conservationist is now reaching for the Stars! A profile of the man, a fellow birder describes as 'more fun and more noisy than 10 crows and 20 mynas put together'—by Betty L Khoo

A happy Sutari sitting next to a floating fish farm cum jetty at Banding Island Resort in Belum

Sutari's drawings of native endangered mammal species for a set of greeting cards

At last I meet Sutari Supari... a full head of glossy black hair frames a baby face; he greets me with a wide-open boyish grin. I am charmed and surprised. How can one so young have done so much? His exploits and accomplishments are many - he is an artist/draughtsman/nature conservationist/adventurer/ expedition leader/co-author/co-(telescope) designer/ jungle camp cook/birder. It is a bigger surprise to learn that Sutari is not 28, which is what he looks, but 48! He chuckles ... our conversation is punctuated with his ready belly-deep laughter.. and I realise that his good nature is the secret of his youthful looks. That and his obvious passion or passions for his nature pursuits. Nature society members know Sutari as an intrepid trekker and passionate conservationist. He soldered alongside Dr Ho Hua Chew and many others in NSS to help collect 25,000 signatures to try and save the wetlands around Senoko power station. 'That was an intense campaign', he remembers. Days, nights, weekends were spent at shopping centres convincing Singaporeans that 'once these places are gone, you can't bring them back.'

So many ordinary people were convinced and signed... but in vain. Still, Sutari has the satisfaction of knowing that his efforts 'lobbying, researching and drawing maps' helped to save and shape another precious wetland area - the Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve. But Sutari was not a conservationist or birder when he was a young man. This former Police Constable who studied advertising art—and made a 28-year career as a draughtsman with the PWD—was lured more by the challenge of climbing mountains than by the soothing sights of nature. As co-founder and later chairman of the Siglap CC Venturers' Club, Sutari has climbed 'every high peak in West and East Malaysia' and quite a few in the region—though he and his team fell short of conquering the 3,726 metre Rinjani in Lombok. 'We were hit by a severe storm for three days.' Not that Sutari has stopped climbing—far from it. He is still leading many adventure-filled treks, but nowadays this passionate conservationist climbs much more mindful of the fragility and beauty of nature. Many nature lovers have had a kampung upbringing. Not so Sutari. He was born in Batu Pahat (Johor) in 1951 but at age five his Javanese father brought him down to Singapore to live. 'My father was working as a chauffeur for a doctor (Robert Loh, now President of the Council of Social Services) in Cairnhill and our family lived with them. Although there was a Boyanese kampung in the corner of Cairnhill/Scotts Road at the time, the whole area was already quite suburban by the late 1950s.

With fellow birder Alfred Chia, listening for the Short-tailed Babbler and Grey-headed Fish-eagle at MacRitchie Reservoir Sutari peering at waders in K. Selangor Nature Park Sutari at the 1995 AGM of the Malayan Nature Society held in Johor. Seated on left is Dr Salleh, the President of MNS Sutari receiving a plaque from the Guest-of-Honor Dr Kanwaljit Soin (NMP) in the 1994 Singapore Bird Race with Evelyn Eng-Lim at right

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