When I first met Prof Ho Coy Choke he was hunched over his plate clumsily shoveling rice into his mouth. He spoke in a loud abrupt tone without looking up. Once his meal was finished he straightened up, slid a pair of heavy rimmed glasses onto his nose and transferred his attention to me. I tried hard to return the scrutiny but between his heavily squinted eyebrows I was not even able to determine the colour of his pupils. That he was a man of powerful intellect was immediately apparent by the chain of his questions. That he loved...

    'Ripe Hairy Red Fruit' introduces several subjects and questions that have been cropping up over the last two years: Imbak Canyon, Maliau Basin and Danum Valley conservation areas The 'economic value' of rainforest conservation Forest rehabilitation and management   On the Arkitrek itself we had an architectural design brief to work to but in many ways this was secondary to the bigger picture that we were involved in. All of these above mentioned themes will crop up in subsequent posts but first a little...

To get things moving I'll publish an edited version of an email that I originally sent on 17 Oct 2004 * * * * * I knew when I took on this job that it would involve chopping down a few rainforest trees, the justification being that you’ve got to loose a few to save a lot. This still did not prepare me for the tearing destruction of a big tree falling to the ground. The tree in question was probably over 50m tall and was undoubtedly a small ecosystem of epiphytes, lianas, frogs, insects, mosses etc all in itself. Its only...