Category: News

The kind residents of Kampung Sikalabaan, in Sabah’s Heart of Borneo region, showed us around their community forest and farmland for the day.

Business cards, Butterflies and Boats in Borneo:

Whilst everyone was sweltering under abnormally tropical temperatures in the UK during July, Dr Jenny Hodgson and I (Dr Lydia Cole) were enjoying a relatively temperate time in the Tropics. We spent the majority of the month in Malaysia and Indonesia, visiting the partners and landscapes that are involved in our NERC-funded project: Decision support for restoring ecological networks in rapidly developing, biodiverse countries. Ghana is the other country involved in the project, which we had the privilege to visit back in April (reported on here). This time, road trip around Southeast Asia!

Our travels started with a stop-off in Kuching, Sarawak, to attend the Association of Tropical Biology and Conservation’s (ATBC) annual meeting, entitled Linking Natural History and the Conservation of Tomorrow’s Tropical Ecosystems. It was a fascinating five days, attended by a huge range of nationalities talking on a similarly wide variety of topics. Jenny presented on Condatis, and I on the long-term ecology of tropical peatlands (another passion). Many of our collaborators were also there presenting, including: Professor Jane Hill and Dr Sarah Scriven from the University of York, and Dr Jed Brodie and Dr Sara Williams from the University of Montana. And we made some useful contacts for the Condatis project, as my new collection of business cards testifies.

Jenny presenting the concepts of Condatis to the participants of our training workshop at Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS).

Just hours after the closing ceremony of the conference had finished (and the after party was likely still in full swing!), we flew on to Kota Kinabalu in Sabah. In order for us ecologists to understand the human-component of the forested landscapes in the region, we were extremely fortunate to be invited to visit several different communities with PACOS Trust (an inspiring charity supporting indigenous communities in Sabah). So the next morning, five of us, equipped with walking boots and mosquito nets, headed upstream, into the Heart of Borneo.

Travelling by boat to the village (kampung) of Sikalabaan, about two hours up-river from Kampung Salong, where the road ends.

We spent three nights in the “cultural house” of Kampung Sikalabaan, along with a dozen other men and boys who were visiting in order to attend training on how to fix boat motors, organised by PACOS. These communities rely on mechanised boats to travel between villages, to school, to obtain provisions and to generate an income; with replacement parts for engines being so expensive, it is important that people know how to fix them. PACOS offers training courses for members of indigenous communities across Sabah, on subjects ranging from how to plant chilli peppers, fix broken machinery, to how to make soap, with the aim of improving their capacity to sustain a low-impact livelihood in the often remote locations they occupy.

We spent one incredible day observing how members of Kampung Sikalabaan use their forest and its plethora of resources. Members of seven families led us patiently (we were significantly slower and less agile than them, despite the laden woven backpacks they were carrying!) through the jungle to their farms, laid out in forest clearings. Along the way, they stopped occasionally to harvest wild ginger or check on a small vegetable plot they’d established, apparently opportunistically, within their community land. Early afternoon, after walking upstream/in-stream for quite some time, we stopped for a spectacular picnic: out of their woven baskets, the women produced a feast for the twenty or so of us, with freshly boiled rice, freshly picked aubergine broth and then to top it off, they caught and we cooked freshly-netted fish from the flowing waters two feet away. Beats a Sainsbury’s sandwich.

The first river crossing. We didn’t realise there were about a dozen more to come. Each time it was so refreshing to wade through thigh-deep water; a welcome relief from the tropical humidity. Thankfully my camera avoided any refreshing dips though!

It was a privilege to see how this community so expertly uses their land, and how important it is for them to have access to the forest and its resources. With rural-urban migration and the designation of ‘communal lands’ providing opportunities for the expansion of oil palm into these areas, as well as pressures on resources and disturbance to ecosystems from logging, industrial agriculture and mining, these community-owned lands are being compromised. The Government’s goal of expanding strictly protected areas across more of its forested asset adds another dimension to the challenge of maintaining indigenous communities in these landscapes. But more discussion on this complex issue will have to wait for a future blog! We thank PACOS and SEARRP (Gordon, Angie and Agnes in particular) for organising this insightful opportunity.

Leaving the forest and returning to Kota Kinabalu was a bit of a shock, though the washing machine was welcomed! The next day we headed into the Forestry Complex at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) campus for two days of training. We had 20 participants attend from a range of backgrounds: in addition to UMS students and lecturers, people attended from the Departments of Agriculture, Irrigation and Drainage (JPS), Forestry (SFD) and Environment Protection (JPAS), from WWF-Malaysia and SEARRP. The first day was led by Dr Sarah Scriven and introduced participants to the R program and how to perform basic analysis and geospatial data processing. The second day, led by myself and Jenny, introduced the concept of Condatis, followed by an interactive session where we guided people through performing their own analyses using the new web version of the tool. (Butterflies (rama-rama in Malay) were used as the study organism; Jenny’s favourite!) Though we were a little optimistic as to how much material we wanted to cover in two days, it seemed to be a success: our participants provided positive and useful feedback that we used to improve and refine our training workshop the following week in Indonesia.

This post is about the 11 month NERC-funded Innovation Follow-on project: Decision support for restoring ecological networks in rapidly developing, biodiverse countries that is in collaboration with the project “Conservation Mapping for New Protected Areas” which is supported by the Rainforest Trust and is based on a strategic partnership between the Sabah Forestry Department, SEARRP, the Carnegie Institution for Science, PACOS Trust and BC Initiative. The R program and Condatis training is also conducted as part of the project “Conservation Mapping for New Protected Areas” in conjunction with the International Tropical Forestry Programme of the Faculty of Science and Natural Resources, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. Click here for a link to the original blog post from Dr Lydia Cole.

SEARRP’s Assistant director for Knowledge Exchange, Dr Jen Lucey, was Highly Commended in the Early Career category of the Vice-Chancellor’s Innovation Awards at the University of Oxford, UK. The awards took place on 12th July 2018 and seek to recognise and celebrate exceptional research-led innovations and products at all University levels that are having societal or economic impact. The initiative attracted a total of 78 entries, from which four winners were chosen and a further 13 projects highly commended across four categories: team work, building capacity, inspiring leadership and early career success.

Dr Lucey worked with the oil palm industry to use her scientific research to develop no deforestation standards. Her synthesis of forest fragmentation was pivotal in developing forest patch analysis for the High Carbon Stock Approach, ensuring that valuable fragmented forest is conserved in agricultural landscapes. The approach is now operating in over millions of hectares throughout the tropics in the oil palm, pulp and paper, and rubber industries. This research was also used to develop High Conservation Value risk maps for a simplified environmental assessment for smallholders to enable greater participation in RSPO certification. Dr Lucey is currently using forest structure and biodiversity data from her research to develop and test a tool for industry to monitor their forest set-asides, enabling long term effectiveness of no-deforestation policy.

The Sabah Forestry Department, in collaboration with the BALI project (Biodiversity and Land-use Impacts on tropical ecosystem functioning) of the Human Modified Tropical Forests (HMTF) programme and South East Asia Rainforest Partnership (SEARRP) are organising a training day on ‘High Resolution Mapping of Sabah’s Forest Carbon’ to develop capacity in Carbon Stock Assessments. The workshop will be held at the Sabah Forestry Department, 29th June 2018 in Sandakan, and will focus on assessing carbon estimations with the Sabah REDD+ Technical Working Group with an emphasis on the importance of measuring, reporting and verifying carbon stocks in the State. This is an EU funded programme through the ‘Tackling Climate Change through Sustainable Forest management and Community Development’ initiative. For more information please visit the Bali website at http://bali.hmtf.info/news/training-on-high-resolution-mapping-of-sabahs-forest-carbon/.

The Human Modified Tropical Forests (HMTF) Programme is holding a science focused knowledge exchange today, June 27th 2018, at the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah.  The aim of this meeting is to share and discuss results from the BALI (http://bali.hmtf.info/), LOMBOK (http://lombok.hmtf.info/) and ECOFOR (http://ecofor.hmtf.info/) projects with local collaborators, researchers and students. The day will focus on science-based cross-consortia knowledge exchange and impact activities, scientific syntheses and reviews, and the potential for future grant proposals. After this meeting, many of the visiting scientists will have follow-up meetings that focus more specifically on policy and knowledge exchange with relevant stakeholders and policymakers in Sabah. For more information and the programme agenda for the HMTF Science Day, please visit http://hmtf.info/.

Dr Eleanor Slade introducing LOMBOK’s engagement with Sabah Government Stakeholders since 2016

Fifty representatives from government agencies, local and international universities, civil society organisations, and industry players will converge at this workshop to exchange knowledge and explore options for the effective design of riparian buffers in Sabah.

The workshop is officiated by Yang Berhormat Assaffal P. Alian, Assistant Minister for Tourism, Culture and Environment Sabah. Also present are the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment Sabah Deputy Permanent Secretary Hajah Mariam Omar Matusin, Environment Protection Department Director Tuan Haji Mohd Yusrie Abdullah, Department of Irrigation and Drainage Sabah Deputy Director, Ir. Charles Yeo and SEARRP Director Datuk Dr. Glen Reynolds.

Dr Matthew Struebig of the University of Kent, one of the lead investigators in the LOMBOK Project stated that the research results are based on a five-year collaboration between scientists in UK universities, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, and the Forest Research Centre in Sepilok, to study rivers in oil palm plantations in the south east of Sabah. With funding from the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the British Council, and the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) via Newton-Ungku Omar Fund, scientists have established a network of biodiversity monitoring and carbon dynamics plots within riparian buffers to test the effectiveness of riparian reserves. In particular, they have been investigating the effects of the quality and width of riparian buffers on water quality, aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity, and carbon fluxes.

Dr Agnes Agama, Assistant Director of SEARRP stated “We have been working to connect LOMBOK Project scientists with the DID and EPD. Both agencies have provided valuable input and advice that has helped the scientists to summarise their research and make it available in a form that is useful for planners and policy-makers in Sabah. Today’s workshop is a result of our collaboration with DID and EPD to share the research on the value of riparian buffers for biodiversity with the wider stakeholder community in Sabah.”

Permanent rivers in Sabah that are more than 3 metres wide require a vegetation zone of at least 20 m from each riverbank, as provided under the Sabah Water Resources Enactment (SWRE) 1998. This regulation is designed to protect water quality, water quantity, and aquatic environments. There are other regulations, such as Sabah Land Ordinance (Cap. 68), Sabah Environment Protection Enactment 2002 and Sabah Forest Enactment 1968, which allow for increasing riparian widths beyond the minimum 20m set by the SWRE 1998.
Strengthening the effectiveness of riparian reserves is crucial for improved landscape connectivity as well as the protection of important ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration, water quality and water quantity.

Participants at the Riparian Workshop

Dr Agama presenting the TESSA Programme timeline.

The SE Asia Rainforest Research Partnership (SEARRP), in collaboration with the Tropical Biology Association (TBA), is embarking on a project supported by Yayasan Hasanah to build capacity of conservation practitioners and natural resource managers to identify, prioritise and assess ecosystem services in Malaysia. This will be the initial phase (Phase One) of this project, which will be carried out over the next 18 months. Phase One commenced on May 1st 2018, and will pilot the Toolkit for Ecosystem Services Site-based Assessment (TESSA) in the Malaysian context.

Dr Reynolds presenting the TESSA toolkit at recent stakeholders meeting

RDC Manager Bernadette Foeman & Prof Mary Gagen looking at the “Telling Time with Trees” exhibition.

“Telling Time with Trees,” which includes wood from Sabah, collected whilst Prof. Mary Gagen was sampling trees as a National Geographic Explorer, allows a hands-on and visual exploration of wood samples from around the world. The exhibit shows visitors how the rings in trees contain a historical record of the climate of the past, and how that record can help scientists understand climate change in the past and predict how the climate will change in the future. Before arriving at the Rainforest Discovery Centre, the “Telling Time with Trees” exhibit was on display in the UK and received more than 16,000 visitors.

Prof. Mary Gagen said “The Rainforest Discovery Centre is the perfect place for “Telling Time with Trees” to make a new home. The exhibit was created, using tree samples from all over the world collected for my research, for our Oriel Science centre in Wales. School children and members of the public learned all about tree ring science and got to examine and appreciate the beautiful Belian samples from Sabah. Oriel Science shares many of the same environmental science education goals of the RDC, and we’re delighted to share the exhibition, and these gorgeous wood samples, and we hope the visitors to the RDC enjoy the exhibit as much as we did in Wales”.

The exhibit donation was facilitated by the SEARRP. “We are delighted that local partners have responded so enthusiastically. We are keen to create more opportunities for Mary and her team at Swansea to collaborate with the network of environmental educators in Sabah on educational activities where local students use science to learn more about the rainforest,” said Dr. Glen Reynolds, Director of SEARRP.

A five-year MoU between SEARRP and Wild Asia was signed on November 27th, 2017 and will commence on January 1st, 2018. This new partnership aims to draw on the strengths of both organisations in order to encourage scientific research with a focus on issues relating to small-holder production of palm oil and the livelihoods of rural and forest-dependent communities in Sabah.

The collaboration will be based primarily at Wild Asia’s sites in Sabah and involve the communities with which they have built long-standing relationships – including at Beluran and on the Kinabantangan River. Working closely with these communities and Wild Asia, SEARRP aims to facilitate environmental and social research involving local and international scientists and teams of field staff from both Wild Asia and SEARRP.

This exciting new relationship for SEARRP will provide opportunities for scientists to work in under-studied landscapes and, we hope, for cutting edge research to better contribute to the livelihoods of local communities and the sustainability of smallholder agriculture. Through both organisation’s strong links with the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), lessons learned from the SEARRP-Wild Asia partnership will potentially be scalable across SE Asia and the wider tropics through the RSPO’s smallholder certification programme, with which Wild Asia is closely involved, and SEARRP’s SEnSOR Programme (www.sensorproject.net).

Representatives from DID, UK & Malaysian Universities and SEARRP

Scientists working together as part of the LOMBOK Project (Land-use Options for Maintaining BiOdiversity & eKosystem functions) aim to address this disparity by promoting the outcomes of their research to DID Sabah, which is the government agency responsible for formulating policy and guidelines on riparian reserves in Sabah. Additional funding from NERC, the British Council and the Malaysian Industry-Government Group for High Technology (MIGHT) via the Newton-Ungku Omar Fund, has enabled LOMBOK scientists to establish a network of biodiversity monitoring and carbon (C) dynamics plots within riparian reserves which tests the effectiveness of riparian reserves – particularly by investigating the effects of the quality and width of riparian reserves on water quality, aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity and carbon fluxes.

This innovative collaboration between DID and the LOMBOK Project was facilitated by Agnes Agama, SEARRP’s Assistant Director of Policy. Agnes initiated the partnership at the 2016 Heart of Borneo (HoB) International Conference, hosted by the Sabah Forestry Department in Kota Kinabalu – during which SEARRP facilitated a workshop that paired scientists with policy-makers. It was at this workshop that opportunities emerged for SEARRP scientists to support DID in their efforts to strengthen riparian policy and guidelines for Sabah.

Following the workshop, scientists in the LOMBOK group, Eleanor Slade, Sarah Luke, Matthew Struebig, and students from the UK and UMS conducted a rapid evidence appraisal of the peer-reviewed scientific literature concerning the potential benefits of riparian reserves in tropical agriculture. The outcomes of this review have been synthesised into a policy brief aimed at informing the review of DID’s riparian policy and guidelines by enabling policy-makers to make decisions based on current scientific knowledge. The policy brief will be co-presented by DID and the LOMBOK group at the 2017 HoB International Conference which runs from October 24-25th in Kota Kinabalu. The presentation will highlight the collaborative processes that underpin our relationship, from fledging introductions at last year’s conference to the delivery of a high-impact, science-for-policy output a year later. It is an excellent example of how scientists and policy-makers can successfully work together to ensure that cutting edge research effectively contributes to improvements in policy and best practice.