Borneo Rainforest Expedition Journal: 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.