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I got the phone call late at night. I have to catch the first flight to Borneo on the next day. As I roam my room deciding what to take with me, I can’t stop thinking about her. This trip is because and for her. I’m heading to northern Borneo, the “land below the wind”, and home to one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Looking through the window of the airplane it’s hard to believe that this land was once covered in luscious forest, one of the oldest ones too. Below the morning mist, palm trees extend as far as I can see, covering everything in a monotone green. There is no much left from those ancient forests, but Iman’s home is here too. I’m picked up at the airport and we head towards the nature reserve. We drive for hours though a landscape dominated by cleared land and palm plantations. Young palms make the landscape look devastating, empty, and dry. Older palms, on the other hand, make it look prehistoric. Iman also looks prehistoric. I met Iman once before. Her sturdy complexion and her leathery body covered in hair, make her look out of place, like she has been here since the beginning of time. That time is coming to an end though, as she is the last rhino in Malaysia, and she is dying. We arrive in the nature reserve, and I’m immediately taken to the enclosure. I see a group of five people so engaged in discussion that they don’t even notice I’m here. In a corner of the room I see her standing so still that I almost didn’t see her either. Have you ever found yourself in a situation that you intellectually understand but can’t seem to emotionally grasp? As I look at her, I keep repeating to myself that this in front of me is the very last rhino in Borneo, that no other rhino will ever walk this ancient island again, and that with her gone, her whole species will be gone too. Does she sense she is the last one? My job is both heartening and heartbreaking. I’m taking Iman’s precious egg cells to Indonesia in an attempt to fertilize them artificially. If successful, the embryo will be transplanted into a surrogate rhino in Sumatra, hopefully giving the species a fighting chance against extinction. Iman means “faith” in Islam, and as I head back to the airport I can’t help but thinking that I’m carrying with me what little faith is left in a whole species.