Posts Tagged: Borneo

Conservation — No Comments
30
Mar 10

Fighting the flames

WWF has stepped in to battle annual fires in central Kalimantan, Borneo, which threaten the survival of an estimated 8,000 endangered wild orang-utans.

Every dry season more forest and peatland in the region is cut and burned to make way for plantations, destroying the forests and some of its wildlife, fuelling climate change, and sparking uncontrolled fires.

Beginning in July 2009, the last dry season was marked by a prolonged drought. This triggered wildfires that threatened to spread into vital orang-utan habitat in the Sebangau National Park area, where they could have easily killed the great apes or left them homeless. The park’s 568,700 hectares are made up of peatland, which burns easily when it dries out.

To help tackle any future fires, WWF has been working with local authorities to train and equip a community fire service called RPK. This has already proved successful. In August a joint team from WWF and the Park Office was on a routine fire patrol when locals alerted them to a fire burning above and below ground in a nearby peat area.

A spokesman for the local RPK said they are much better prepared to tackle fires since they  have established proper forest fire-fighting techniques. “When the fire started, we extinguished it using techniques that we learned during training sessions conducted by WWF just before the dry season ,” he added.

WWF has also established and fully equipped a forest fire-fighting station in north Ulu Segama – a critical orang-utan habitat in the Heart of Borneo. And we are working with local people to strategically block local canals: this keeps water in the peat bog areas to reduce the risk of fire and allow plants to re-grow. In west Kalimantan, WWF has established two pilot projects in villages pioneering the use of improved farming techniques that do not require burning.

We hope to expand these projects. We are also calling for the government to support us with tougher law enforcement against those found guilty of setting fires as well as action to prevent further incidents.

Conservation — No Comments
7
Jan 10

It’s a dirty job…

February, 2007

Inspecting elephant dung may not be everyone’s idea of the perfect job, but as Andy Kenworthy found out, it is a key part of WWF’s efforts to conserve the endangered Borneo pygmy elephant.

It takes some serious foliage to hide an elephant, even a pygmy one. Borneo has serious foliage, enough to keep groups of up to 100 of these rare 2.5m high mini-jumbos from the gaze of all but the most determined of humans.

But it’s not enough to deter Engelbert Joseph, Jabanus Muin and Herman Francis from WWF-Malaysia’s elephant monitoring team. Their working day is spent in the sort of jungle conditions used to harden the world’s Special Forces, tracking the elephants themselves and studying their leavings when they are out of sight.

The team counts the number of droppings, measures the distance between them, and notes anything unusual along the way. They also study dung decomposition, comparing how fast it degenerates in the open and in the jungle, so they can estimate the age of each dropping when out tracking.

Occasionally, they DNA test samples for inbreeding, a risk among this small remaining population. In 2005, they also began the largest satellite tracking study of elephants ever conducted in Asia, studying the pygmy elephants by attaching satellite collars to five of them.

“Some times the day is quite easy, some times are really hard,” Jabanus told me. “And it can be dangerous.”

Engelbert was an elephant trainer before he became a tracker and his expertise with these animals has featured on television documentaries. But he still keeps a canister of pepper spray handy as he bends over some dung with his tape measure, to deter charging elephants in an emergency.

He has been charged by elephants many times, and kicked more than once, but his love for them remains undaunted. He and the rest of the team provide important research information on elephant numbers, their health and their diet – data which can be used to find out how the herds are coping with the changing world around them.

And there is no doubt it is changing, fast, because the trees which shelter the elephants are also a vital source of income for Malaysia’s economy. Most of the forest around them is scheduled to be cut again in the coming years.

So as well as a game of high tension hide and seek, this is a race against time – to prove to the world how magnificent and important the Borneo pygmy elephant is, and inspire the action needed to save them, before it is too late.

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7
Jan 10

Life in the fauna sauna

My first time in Borneo’s jungle. I was wrapped head to toe in bandana, hat, long-sleeved anti-mozzie shirt, long trousers, leech-proof socks and state of the art hiking boots.

I staggered through the overgrowth like a drunken brass band. Afterwards I discovered six leeches crawling up my trousers, one in my armpit and three sucking the life out of my upper thigh. As I rubbed menthol oil on to my skin to detach the world’s most annoying living bogeys I considered how this gave new meaning to the phrase ‘tough day at the office.’

I had come to Danum Valley in the northern part of the island to find out what it takes to track endangered orang-utans through the jungle. What it takes, other than an air-conditioned spacesuit, is sheer dedication and commitment, which I found among the WWF-Malaysia team who were my guides.

I returned each night to the relatively giant-bug-free safety of our base in a scientists hut. But there are times when the team’s work means camping out inside nature’s full frenzy for up to 10 days at a time.

Field Biologist, Shan Khee Lee, explained: “When we are camping in the jungle we do not have anywhere special to cook or eat. There is no power or entertainment in the evening so we go to bed early.

“When you are working and getting dirty all day it can be hard when you finish to still be in the jungle. For three or four days it is okay, but for ten days or more, it is hard.”

Helicopter surveys check the treetops for the nests which each orang-utan makes each day, and these are followed up by patrols on the ground. How green the nest is, combined with smell of fresh urine or droppings, tells the team how recently it was occupied.

If the nest was last night’s bed, then the target may not have gone too far. Once the animal is spotted, the team moves silently into position beneath it, and begins photographing and making notes of its behaviour. For as long as it takes.

The team does this for about three weeks each month. They spend the rest of the time in meetings, planning, training, and meeting up with the loved ones they leave at the edge of the jungle. Or they write reports for people like us, to tell us how it really is in the wild.

I was relieved to return to my desk, awed and inspired.

“We spend more time with each other than with our families,” said Shan Khee. “We feel like a family, like brothers and sisters. The animals cannot tell us what they need, so we researchers must tell the world for them. We are the messengers.”

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6
Jan 09

Which Came First – The Turtle or the Egg?

February 2007

“But won’t the tourists want to eat turtle eggs?”

For me, this question sums up the challenge facing fishing communities and conservationists around the island of Banggi, which rests just off Borneo’s northern coastline.

To the elderly fisherman who asked us, it was an innocent enough idea, even a generous one.

Surely visitors to these idyllic seas would want to share the local delicacy?

We surfed storm waves in a WWF powerboat to return from this project

Storm rising. Kudat, northern Borneo

To me, travelling with WWF from the UK, it came as a bit of a shock. But marine biologist Lee Yoke Lee, our host from WWF Malaysia, showed no signs of surprise.

“People around here have always eaten turtle eggs,” she said. “It is illegal. But that is not going to stop them.”

We were standing on the puddled floor of the partially ruined village meeting house, having a conversation which, for the fisherman, must have already seemed like an odd one. As part of a WWF pilot project in the area, Lee Yoke Lee was trying to get them to decide which areas of the ocean they would stop fishing.

“We are talking about their livelihoods.” said Lee. “We don’t make the decisions for them because they are the ones who will have to abide by them.”

The huddle of men stood around the whiteboard, which was hanging from a palm tree, drawing no-take zones and smoking heavily. Behind them the sea shimmered and hushed against holiday brochure sand, showing little sign of the problems these drastic measures are trying to solve.

But earlier in the day it had only required a snorkel and mask to see what was happening.

As we swam the coral’s explosions of colour and life gave way to blasted wastelands, the aftermath of bomb fishing, cyanide and trawler nets.

Although the underwater vistas still took the breath from your snorkel, it was clear even to me that there was plenty missing from the picture postcard scenes.

We saw very few large fish, no sharks, no turtles. Closer in to the shore we visited the pens where the remnants of fish species which should be abundant are being captive fed, because the individuals caught are too small for the table.

In the waters around Banngi, the top of the ocean’s food chain is being destroyed to become part of the human food chain.

Lee said:  “The best chance of preserving this area and improving the lives of the people is to reduce the damage to the coral and attract tourists. But tourists will not come to see this.”

It’s a vicious cycle: under increased pressure from large scale commercial trawling, a desperate minority of local fishers are destroying the coral to get at the fish they need, because there aren’t enough tourists spending hard cash in the area. But the tourists won’t come until the destruction stops and the big fish and turtles return. It is this cycle which WWF is helping local people break free from.

There are those who might say that the struggle is over. In 2003 the Sabah government approved the creation of Tun Mustapha Park. At over one million hectares, it has the potential to be Southeast Asia’s largest marine park, giving increased protection to local endangered species, the reefs and the livelihoods of local people.

On paper it is exactly what the area needs – a new era of co-operation between all those using the marine resources so as to maintain them properly. But full protection of this huge area is yet to be realised, and in the meantime the destruction continues.

While approaching another idyllic snorkelling site in WWF’s powerboat Mameng, we came across a lone dynamite fisherman, who packed up his equipment and left as soon as we approached. In his wake he left the floating victims – brightly coloured reef fish too small to eat, killed indiscriminately by the blast.

WWF’s work on the shores of Kudat and Banngi is hoping to make scenes like this a thing of the past, and the Tun Mustapha Park a reality.

Then local people may at last be freed from desperate subsistence fishing by a more prosperous and mixed economy. Across the park, various areas will be set aside for recreation and commercial purposes, while some areas will be placed off limits to recover.

Without the cooperation of local people the park would be impossible to manage. This is why Lee Yoke Lee’s small pilot project, which aims to do just that, is entirely voluntary.

WWF has used no-take zones extensively around the world, demonstrating how fish stocks regenerate in these safe havens and rapidly spill over into areas where they can then be fished, meaning richer pickings for everyone.

Understandably, the fishers of Banngi, whose lives depend on the outcome, are not satisfied with reports in books from far away. But bravely, cautiously, they are willing to give it a try, to see for themselves right here.

By the time the sun sets and the children return to their beach volleyball, the whiteboard map is filled with multi-coloured suggestions, which will be taken to the next meeting, and the next, until agreement is reached.

Because if we want a brighter future, everybody has to be in on it.