I had heard of the Save Belum-Temengor Postcard Campaign but had no idea where Belum-Temengor was. An invitation to join the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) Bird Group trip to Belum was a great incentive to find out more. The sum of my knowledge was that MNS had successfully motivated the Malaysian public to lobby the government on an issue of environmental conservation. The cessation of logging in Temengor and the gazettement of Royal Belum as a State Park are remarkable achievements and a source of optimism for protection...

Photo: John and Jemi Holmes The idea of a bird-watching trip to Imbak began in 2004 when Peter Stevens and I were working there with Raleigh International. Significantly this was also the occasion when I realised I was on the slippery slope to becoming a bird-watcher. I remember we were barely 50 paces out of the Raleigh camp when Pete paused between the buttresses of an enormous Mengaris Tree. ‘Did you hear that?’ It was an instruction more than a question. I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about but waited...

Read Part I and II first Department Admits Logging Disaster’. That was the headline in the Sabah Daily Express the morning after the Sabah Society talk. It seems that the question and answer session at the end of the talk was dominated by discussion of an environmental crisis which had been unfolding for some time in the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve. It is uncharacteristically frank for a politician to admit to a ‘disaster’ and to give him credit the gist of the message appeared to be; ‘it’s a fair cop Guv, please go easy...