Biodiversity of Borneo 2008

I can’t believe the course is over already! It seems like just yesterday that I was arriving at Lambir National Park to join the group, eager and nervous about what laid ahead of me. I suppose that in reality it was only four weeks ago, but those weeks have been chock full of some of the most incredible and meaningful experiences of my life. I know from talking with my classmates, who have by now become my extremely close friends, that they all feel the same way. Since I have the lucky honor of recording the last day of this great course, I will start by recording the events of the day, and then try to give a short synopsis of the highlights of the last month.

This morning, we all were able to sleep in and get some much needed rest after the long trip back from Maliau yesterday. I spent the morning shopping for an external computer hard drive, which I will try to fill with everyone’s pictures from the trip. I expect to get thousands of beautiful shots. I’ve seen many of them already. At noon, we all met in the lobby of the now-familiar Kinabalu Daya hotel to head to UMS for the final project presentations. Everyone was cleaned up and dressed in nice clothes, which was fun to see after four weeks of more or less basic living.

The campus of University of Malaysia Sabah, where the final presentations were held, never ceases to amaze me. The area where we held our talks was perched on a steep hill with a beautiful view overlooking all of Kota Kinabalu, the harbour, and Gaya Island. Every single project group gave excellent and interesting presentations, and we were honored by the presence of quite a few guests, including the director of the Marine Research Institute at UMS, several of the overseers of the Maliau Basin Conservation Area, and the owner of our favorite bookstore, Borneo Books!

After the presentations, we all adjourned a few miles away to the Atmosphere (or more accurately, @mosphere) restaurant for the final banquet. @mosphere is quite an experience. It is a rotating restaurant located halfway up the tallest building in KK. It reminded me quite a bit of an underwater landscape like the reef at Malohom Bay - dimly lit and filled with flowing curtains like red seaweed and strangely shaped chairs that were reminiscent of shelf coral. We watched an incredible sunset over the bay, then had a wonderful dinner, as the floor gently spun in a rather disorienting manner. The evening was capped off by the awarding of certificates by Cam, and a wonderful slideshow put together by Allen and Ayu. We all said some emotional goodbyes, and then many of us headed out to an afterparty of sorts at the Coccoon restaurant.

Over the last we have all experienced a thousand amazing things. Lambir was my first taste of the rainforest, and I was amazed and overwhelmed by the complete saturation of life. Every sight and sound washed over me and left me in awe. The time we spent of the reef at Gaya Island gave me the same enthrallment. Deramakot made us all think about the unavoidable conflict between the needs of nature and of Man, and the ways in which it may be possible for the two to coexist. The hike of Mount Kinabalu was difficult but extremely rewarding, and it exposed us to amazing organisms and ecosystems, many of which are found nowhere else in the world! In Maliau Basin, we returned to the Lowland Dipterocarp forest, and with the context gained from our experiences in all the previous locations, we were better able to understand and examine in detail the ecosystems found there. All along the way, the lectures given by the faculty, TF’s, and local experts helped us better appreciate the forest and the issues facing it, and our interactions with the other students formed important bonds and helped us to examine both sides of the cultural challenges that are involved when addressing the rainforest. Of course, we each had an uncountable number of meaningful moments, and we were all affected by what we saw in different ways.

By tomorrow, we will have scattered back to our respective homes, but we will all take with us a new love for the rainforest and an understanding of the critical dangers it faces. Some of us, like myself, have been inspired to dedicate our lives to the conservation of the world’s few remaining wild places. All of us will from now on have a special place in our hearts for the rainforest, and an acute awareness of the issues facing it. I’m already looking forward to hear about BoB 2009!

Thanks to everyone for an incredible summer.

Sincerely,
Will

Today we bid farewell to the majestic Maliau Basin, which rivaled or exceeded the great Mt. Kinabalu in the challenges it posed for us. Our research complete, and the end now sadly in sight, we started the day at a reasonable time – even late, compared to our other travel days – eating, loading the 4×4s, and departing AFTER sunrise.

The original plan after departing was to visit an IKEA restoration project in the area, then visit Tawau for the day before our evening flight back to KK. The first departure from this plan was the cancellation of our IKEA project visit, which, on the upside, meant that we would have more time to explore Tawau. The second departure was rather less inoffensive…

The road from Maliau epitomized the difficulties that go hand in hand with 4×4s and the wilderness. The rides before this had been less than luxurious, but this time, I made the mistake of deferring to Ayu when it came to choosing a vehicle. Squeezing into the back of a pickup truck, the most cramped of the vehicles, I realized soon that any discomforts would be amplified. On the up side, the roughness of the dusty, rocky roads was something we had already learned to take for granted, and we know now that the thick heat that AC can never manage to suppress is just part and parcel of this place. So, in my iron cradle, I found myself slipping in and out of consciousness, unaware as the car was slipping to the back of the caravan.

I next woke to find us on the side of the road with both the doors and the hood open. I don’t really have a sense of how long we’d been there, but from the sweat dripping of the others (and myself), I guessed that it might have been some time. Apparently, something went wrong with the power steering, perhaps among other things, and we were incapacitated. I’m not really clear as to whether we ever contacted the others (and if so, how) or they just realized we were missing and sent a car back, but after an endless wait, help came. The two drivers, ours and the other, worked together to get us moving again.

We arrived at our planned lunch stop just as everybody else was finishing, so we got a quick bit to eat and drink (I just had a huge bottle of 100 Plus – which I don’t recommend, because they seem to lose their fizz faster than the cans), and left.

Finally arriving safely for Tawau, the first thing on my to-do list was acquiring a large number of sarongs to give as gifts to my family and friends. During the last Sunday Market in Kota Kinabalu, I was so shocked by the novelty of everything that I didn’t buy nearly enough sarongs to give to everyone, so I was after 7ish more today. After walking around for a while, stopping for some beauty products, and idling as various groups planned their afternoons, we set out on my mission.

We soon came to a great marketplace, a place of great sarong abundance. I easily found many that I liked (though it was soon discovered by the others that I am very indecisive when it comes to shopping), and Ayu bartered expertly on my behalf. With my mission accomplished, we stopped for a drink in a small food court where the cook was more than willing to be photographed.

After that, it was just a matter of meeting up again for dinner (see Wan inspecting dinner prospects below…), and then flying back to KK. This all went off without a hitch, so after an eventful yet non-academic day, the evening has been fairly relaxed – relaxed if one doesn’t consider the big presentations tomorrow at UMS…