About Duncan

Entrepreneur, reptile breeder, and conservationist — and the man behind Rimba Reptile Park and the discovery of Varanus macraei.

I’m a lifelong entrepreneur with a career that has taken me across many different industries, countries and personal interests. I have always worked for myself and have spent my life identifying opportunities, developing ideas and turning the things I am passionate about into successful businesses.

An Entrepreneurial Life

My entrepreneurial journey began before I moved to Indonesia, when I ran my own window-cleaning business in Edinburgh, Scotland. After moving to Indonesia in the 1980s, I went on to establish and operate businesses across a remarkably diverse range of industries. These have included handicraft exports; silver and gold jewellery manufacturing and export; reptile breeding and international export; the creation of Rimba, the Bali Reptile Park; real estate development; motorcycle importation and distribution; and fine wine importing and distribution.

A Passion for Motorcycles

Motorcycles have always been another great passion of mine. That enthusiasm eventually became part of my professional life when I became involved in introducing major European motorcycle brands to the Indonesian market. I served as Director of Husqvarna Motorcycles in Indonesia and later as CEO of PT Bali Dirt Bike, which operated the official BMW Motorrad importership. For me, this was a perfect example of the way I have approached business throughout my life: finding something I genuinely believe in and am passionate about, recognising its potential, and then building a business around it.

When Jakarta Globe joined us for the launch of BMW Motorrad’s first Jakarta showroom and a subsequent ride across Bali on the R 1200 GS, the feeling I described to them was simple: “Freedom.”

A Lifelong Fascination with Reptiles

The natural world, however, has always been one of my greatest interests. My fascination with reptiles led me to establish one of Bali’s early licensed reptile breeding operations in the 1990s and later to create Rimba, the Bali Reptile Park.

In 2000, that same curiosity took me to the remote island of Batanta in search of reports of an extraordinary blue tree monitor. The species was subsequently formally described in 2001 as Varanus macraei and named in my honour — something that remains one of the greatest privileges of my life. Today, my reptile work is increasingly focused on the breeding and conservation of rare and endangered species, including a number of the world’s rarest iguanas.

My hands-on involvement with reptiles has also extended into venom collection and research, an interest that Xpat Life Asia profiled in a short documentary on my work collecting venom from wild snakes. I also supplied venom from a Papuan taipan (Oxyuranus scutellatus, from Merauke, Indonesia) that was used in a peer-reviewed comparative study of taipan venoms published in the journal Toxins.

That fieldwork hasn’t only involved venom. One especially memorable expedition was documented by the TV series Wild Things, in “Duncan McRae: Snake Hunter.” A film crew and I explored a cave in the Indonesian jungle known locally as the “cave of death,” where villagers believed a giant man-eating python had made its home, and where we found bones that looked disturbingly human. Just as the search seemed to be coming up empty, a huge reticulated python emerged from hiding — eventually measured at around 23½ feet — and briefly wrapped a coil around me before the group safely subdued her. Rather than harming the animal, I released her back into the forest and spent time with the local villagers on safer ways to coexist with the snakes sharing their land.

Ethnobotany and Traditional Plant Medicine

My interest in nature extends far beyond animals. I have also developed a deep fascination with plants, particularly ethnobotany and the traditional use of plant medicines. Having lived in Indonesia for more than 35 years, I became increasingly interested in the important role that traditional plant-based medicines play in Indonesian culture and in the knowledge that has been passed down through generations about the properties and uses of different plants.

This curiosity eventually took me beyond Indonesia. I travelled to Thailand, Cambodia, India and Vanuatu in the South Pacific to learn more about local ethnobotanical traditions, plant medicines and the ways in which different cultures have developed their own relationships with medicinal plants.

Over time, that fascination became a business of its own. In 2016, I founded Motark Enterprise, a Hong Kong-headquartered botanical sciences company supplying standardised plant extracts and licensable IP sourced directly from long-term grower partnerships across Indonesia, Thailand, Vanuatu, Fiji, India and South Africa — the same regions, and often the same relationships, that first drew me into ethnobotany.

Entrepreneurship as a Way of Life

Looking back, entrepreneurship has been the common thread connecting the many different chapters of my life. I have never followed a conventional career path or limited myself to a single industry. Whether I was exporting handicrafts, manufacturing jewellery, breeding reptiles, developing property, importing motorcycles or exploring the world of ethnobotanical plants, I have always been driven by the same combination of curiosity, independence and the desire to build something of my own.

For me, being an entrepreneur has never simply meant owning businesses. It is a way of approaching life: being curious enough to explore unfamiliar territory, independent enough to follow your own direction, and willing to turn an idea or a passion into something real.

Fast Facts: Duncan Malcolm MacRae

Connect with Duncan on LinkedIn.

Sources

• Motark Enterprise (official website). Kwun Tong, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
• Barber, C.M. et al., “Comparative Studies of the Venom of a New Taipan Species, Oxyuranus temporalis, with Other Members of Its Genus,” Toxins 6(7), 1979–1995 (2014).
• “Duncan McRae: Snake Hunter,” Wild Things, YouTube.
• “Xpat Life Asia Profile of Duncan Macrae, Snake Venom Collector,” Xpat Life Asia, YouTube.
• “For an Inland Adventure on Bali, Only Big Bikes Will Do,” Jakarta Globe.
• Varanus macraei, Wikipedia.
• Bali Reptile Park (official website). Singapadu, Gianyar, Bali, Indonesia.
• Duncan Malcolm MacRae, LinkedIn profile.