Imbak Canyon, one of the last virgin lowland rainforests of Sabah, Malaysia, isn't for the faint of heart. DAY ONE 7:15 AM August 13, 2011 - Ian rolls up in with Ishmael in a beefy air-conditioned jungle truck and Daniele and I throw our backpacks in the back. For the first six hours the roads are paved and for the last two through the palm plantations, as bumpy as the surface of the moon. I am sick the entire time anyway and everyone is patient with my vicious heaves. Poor Ishmael is fasting all day long...

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...

Read Part I first Imbak Tampoi Basecamp A white Landcruiser bounces into the Imbak Tampoi Basecamp and three men jump out clutching rolls of paper and clip boards. I sense forestry officials and so try to lurk inconspicuously. ‘Is that a map of Imbak region?’ I enquire innocently, ‘can I have a look?’ I add before he has a chance to respond. Sure enough it is a map of the proposed logging coupe, an area of nearly 23,000ha in the Sungai Pinangah, Gunung Rara and Kuamut Forest Reserves. Much of this region has already...

Pete and I were standing motionless on the nature trail at Danum Valley Field Centre, our ears craned and binoculars at the ready. We were on a twitch. Some friends of Pete’s had reported sensational sighting of a Giant Pitta on this trail just a month before. The Giant Pitta is high on the wanted list of every bird watcher who comes to Borneo, but at this moment it was the call of a quite different bird that we were straining to hear. The instant I heard it I recalled a similar scenario, an occasion that my father described...