<
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/11/how-scientists-and-a-community-are-bringing-a-bornean-river-corridor-back-to-life/>
"SABAH, Malaysia — Although it’s early in the day, the sun is already beating
down fiercely as we step off the boat onto the muddy banks of the Kinabatangan
River in the Malaysian state of Sabah. Amaziasizamora Jumail strides ahead into
a patch of degraded forest, weaving her way through a tangled web of spiky
liana vines and jauntily angled tree stems. As we clamber deeper into the
thicket, the sunlight sears through multiple canopy gaps. There’s no hope of
the cool shade of a mature forest here. Not yet, anyway.
“We’re not just planting trees here, we’re restoring an entire ecosystem,”
Jumail, field manager of the U.K.-based nonprofit Regrow Borneo, says as she
stoops to inspect a dung beetle pitfall trap she set up previously in this
scrubby yet-to-be-planted forest plot. “Dung beetles are good indicators of
forest health, so this baseline data will help us measure ecosystem recovery,”
she says.
The distant call of gibbons trails through the humid air, their whooping
crescendo a reminder that pockets of intact forest still cling on within the
wider sea of oil palm monoculture that dominates the expansive Kinabatangan
floodplain.
Jumail’s dung beetle survey is part of Regrow Borneo’s efforts working
alongside the local community to reconnect fragmented patches of rainforest
along the river corridor. In the process, it’s studying the effects of
restoration on biodiversity, carbon sequestration and ecosystem resilience.
The initiative is a collaboration between the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC)
— Cardiff University’s scientific research and training facility in Sabah — and
KOPEL, a community-led cooperative that runs ecotourism operations and has been
planting native trees around the four villages of Batu Puteh township for more
than two decades."
Via
Future Crunch:
<
https://futurecrunch.com/good-news-child-nutrition-human-rights-bhutan-ocean-png/>
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
