Arkitrek has recently completed concept design for 6 new VIP rooms at Danum Valley Field Centre (DVFC). These rooms are part of the upgrading and refurbishment work at the aging field centre which is necessitated by 20 years of operation in a harsh environment and recent expansion of rainforest research activities. Together with the new laboratory (see previous post) this accommodation will be jointly developed by Yayasan Sabah and The Royal Society SE Asia Rainforest Research Program. Primary funding will come from the Sekhar...

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...

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...