Kota Kinabalu

I flew from Chicago/San Francisco/Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu, the capital of Sabah state in Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. Borneo is the third largest island in the world, located north of Australia and south of Vietnam. Kota Kinabalu is named after Mt. Kinabalu, which is the highest mountain in a mountain range just east of the city. KK is on the coast of the South China Sea, with a population of almost a million people. I spent two days in KK, and I was most impressed with its friendliness and its vibrancy. There seemed to be people from all over Asia, everyone going somewhere, doing something. Lots of building going on. Shopping centers everywhere - a "shopping center" in KK is a huge, enclosed, air-conditioned, multi-floor area packed with kiosks. The main street along the sea was filled with open-air markets. At sunset, I walked to the park overlooking the city and watched a family of monkeys playing in the trees.

In Transit

We flew from KK to Lahad Datu, on the east coast of Borneo.

Lahad Datu is the center of the palm oil industry in Sabah. From the air, we could see miles of oil palm plantations. The plantations are planted on land that was formerly rainforest.

By Land Rover to the Danum Valley Conservation Area - a 3 hour drive.

One of the many logging trucks we saw along the way.

Danum Valley: Day 2

Day 2 in the field, at the Danum Valley Conservation Area. This morning after breakfast we watched a group of gibbons playing near the dining hall, and we watched an orangutan in a nearby tree. We're at the the field headquarters in the Danum Valley, in the primary growth rainforest. The Conservation Area is a protected area within Malaysia and is believed to have never been inhabited or hunted. All the natural species are still here at their natural levels. But there is a lot of pressure to log this area - hundreds of millions of $ of potential lumber. There's also pressure to convert the forest to oil palm plantations (cosmetics industry). The future plan is to convert about 20% (250,000 hectares) of Malaysian forest to palm plantations.

The Danum Valley Conservation program was started in 1985 and is the most influential in SE Asia for studying the rainforest. One of the research questions is - What is the effect of increased draught on the forests, because of the increased frequency of El Nino events due to climate change? And what is the particular effect on the secondary (logged) forests? Climate monitoring has been going on here since 1986; it's getting wetter, but rainfall is coming mostly from major storms, which leads to increased erosion and landslides, especially in logged areas. The man on the far right in the photo is Dr. Glen Reynolds, the director of the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Scientists from all over the world come to DVCA to study the rainforest ecosystem. During our visit, there were about a hundred researchers staying at DVCA headquarters .

The most important group of tree species in the Borneo rainforests are the dipterocarps, some of the tallest trees in the tropics - they grow to more than 80 m tall. Borneo has the greatest diversity and abundance of dipterocarps in the world - but they are threatened by logging and climate change.

These days, scientists are focusing on an ecosystems approach -

the impact on r-species (funghi, termites, ants, etc.); and on pollinators and herbivores

We went on a short hike into the primary forest. The rainforest is amazing and beautiful -
tall trees with very little plant life below the canopy.

A terrestrial leech - one of MANY encountered during my visit

Base Camp: Day 2

We drove from DVCA to the Malua base camp, our "home" for the next 7 days. The Malua camp is in the secondary forest, which has been logged at least once, many areas twice. There are about 20 people at the camp - our Earthwatch group, several graduate students, several research assistants, and a support staff. The researchers are studying the biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, capacity for regeneration and requirements for restoration in forests that have been degraded by logging.

Dipterocarps seedling nursery

Bees love sweaty clothes!

The first night, there was a HUGE rainstorm - the rain came straight down for several hours. Awesome.
(This is not a photo of the rainstorm - it's just mist.)

We found the real purpose the British invented Land Rovers -
they're for transporting 10 people (in the back) over mountainous terrain on gravel roads.

The dorm

Malua: Day 3

The Land that Never Sleeps

Borneo is called, "The Land That Never Sleeps" - some night photos

Bats "hanging out" under the men's dorm

Those are pygmy elephants in the distance.

Malua: Day 4

Today is our second "work day." The forest is so dense, there's no way we could walk in it without the staff. They are research assistants who have grown up in the villages of Borneo and are educated about the local ecology. Our work here is to collect data from the experimental plots, where dipterocarp seedlings have been planted. The researchers' goal is to assess the impact of several variables on seedling viability and ultimate growth. The photo below is of a dipterocarp seed. The dipterocarps only produce seeds about every 10-12 years, and this summer is one of those years. Scientists don't know what causes the seeds to fall but think it may be related to El Nino events. Yesterday it started pouring rain about halfway through the day. We all loved being in the forest during the rainstorm - it seemed fitting! Back at camp after lunch, we listened to a short tutorial from Glen about tropical forest biomes, ecosystems, and reforestation.

Malua: Day 5

The first 3 days at Malua were work days. Last night we went on a night drive to look for pygmy elephants. We heard and saw several of the elephants, which are unique to Borneo. A World Wildlife Federation study found that the pygmy elephants are genetically distinct from other Asian elephants, thereby recognizing it as a subspecies. The elephants are living in the Malua area, because they feed off the fruit trees, especially figs, that grow in the secondary forests. They're beautiful animals, about the size of horses (fatter!), with long droopy ears, and it was surreal standing in the back of the Land Rover in the darkness, seeing them in their natural habitat.

Last night we also drove down a new logging road and saw the devastating effects of the "sustainable logging" going on in Malua. Downed trees everywhere, waiting to be hauled away. To think the dipterocarps only produce seeds every 10 years, and the seedlings remain dormant on the canopy floor until there is a gap in the canopy so they can begin growing. It takes many decades for the trees to grow to the heights they are when they're logged. The hardwood is precious and valuable and is an income source for Malaysia. The good news is that the government is working with scientists to develop sustainable logging techniques, and the industry is currently heavily regulated.