Guest guest Posted September 24, 2003 Report Share Posted September 24, 2003 ***************************Advertisement*************************** eCentral - Your Entertainment Guide http://www.star-ecentral.com ***************************************************************** This message was forwarded to you by yitzeling. Comment from sender: This article is from The Star Online (http://thestar.com.my) URL: http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2003/9/23/features/6308307 & sec=f\ eatures ________________________ Tuesday September 23, 2003 Wildlife wardens CONSERVATION can only be achieved with the support of local communities. With that in mind, the Kinabatangan Orang Utan Conservation Project (KOCP) has roped in the people of Sukau village in its endeavour to protect the orang utans of Lower Kinabatangan. Apart from employing village youths as research assistants, the project initiates community schemes to boost local economic development. Three Sukau villagers talk about their role in preserving the Kinabatangan. Like the other villagers of Sukau, Azri Sawang once viewed orang utans as destructive pests which destroy crops. “We feared these big monkeys as we were told they were vicious.” That perception changed soon after he joined KOCP in 1999. Today, he fights for the protection of the red-haired apes. With a Form Three qualification, Azri, 30, had little job prospects. He worked in plantations and factories and eventually as a tour guide in Sukau. He was jobless for a year prior to joining the research project. Like his colleagues, what started out as just a job for Azri became a passion. “I began to feel a change in my attitude towards animals. I & #8217;ve stopped hunting deer and keeping animals at home. I appreciate my work as I & #8217;m not just working, I & #8217;m learning.” The job was difficult at first as he had to learn scientific names of plants and trees. Training covers a wide range of topics to equip the research assistants for the task and include classes on eco-ethological (study of the dynamics of animal behaviour) data collection, wildlife census techniques, vegetation surveys, plant identification, phenology (study of effects of climate on seasonal occurrence of flora and fauna), compass usage and computer skills. The research assistants work in pairs to track orang utans from dawn to dusk. They write down the orang utan & #8217;s every action every three minutes. The job calls for discipline and a keen interest in wildlife, without which data would be inaccurate. The wealth of information generated is used for preparing conservation plans. Confident with the ability of the senior research assistants, KOCP directors Dr Isabelle Lackman-Ancrenaz and Dr Marc Ancrenaz now leave much of the field work in the hands of their local workers. Senior staff such as Azri recruit and train the new ones. The research assistant programme is popular among village youths as job opportunities are scarce in Sukau. Villagers & #8217; initial distrust and scepticism for the conservation project has grown into support as they witnessed the dedication of KOCP staff who, apart from conducting school and community projects, even slept on farms to protect crops from wildlife raids. There are fewer cases of illegal hunting since the Honorary Wildlife Warden scheme started in Sukau. In this Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) programme initiated last year in Sabah, volunteers are trained as rangers to assist in protecting wildlife. In Sukau, Azri heads a team of 10 wardens who patrol areas popular among sport hunters. As wardens, they are authorised to check hunters for permits and seize poached animals. Cases are handed over to the SWD. For those Sukau villagers lucky enough to be involved in the KOCP scheme, they have attained a broader view of environmental appreciation and conservation. Now they act as ambassadors for wildlife and habitat preservation among the Kinabatangan communities. Rosdi Sakong & #8217;s story parallels Azri & #8217;s. After finishing Form 5, he drifted between jobs, working as a car mechanic, a driver and a fisherman before ending up as a research assistant with KOCP. The job has enriched him in many ways. Apart from garnering vital knowledge on conservation, he got the chance to attend international workshops on managing human-wildlife conflicts, his speciality area in KOCP. He heads the Wildlife Control Unit which was set up last July under the KOCP to tackle the problem of animal raids on villagers & #8217; farms and estates. Each fruiting season, groups of orang utans would feast on the langsat, durian, cempedak, rambutan and ciku trees cultivated by villagers in their orchards. Through trial and error, the team has found some effective methods to deter the orang utans. They fire small cannons, burn leaves and dried chillies to create pungent smoke, light kerosene lamps and wrap tree trunks with metal sheets (to prevent the orang utans from climbing up). Rosdi & #8217;s team is on call 24 hours a day & #8211; villagers just need to call should they require help in ridding their farms of orang utans. “Some of the villagers used to shoot the orang utans; now they just chase them away,” says Rosdi, 31. The group also guards against elephant raids. Adult male elephants exact the worst toll because, being solitary and silent, they give no warning of their approach. Each can wipe out 0.4ha of oil palm in one raid. Herds, on the other hand, can be heard miles away which gives villagers time to prepare for the raid. The herd at Kinabatangan has 111 elephants and migrates up and down the Lower Kinabatangan three times a year, says Rosdi. “They can cause great damage. Once they ate up everything on a 12ha site. Elephant raids have become more frequent when land was opened up for plantations. Because their passage is blocked by fenced up oil palm estates, the elephants use other routes and sometimes these lead them into villages.” By monitoring the herd & #8217;s movements, Rosdi & #8217;s team can anticipate the animals' arrival and be better prepared. The methods used to chase away elephants are similar to those for orang utans. The wildlife control unit assists only Kina-batangan villages and not plantations. These are fenced up to deter wildlife entries and are guarded by dogs which, unfortunately, do attack orang utans. Dwindling forests in Kinabatangan has robbed the region & #8217;s inhabitants, the Orang Sungai, of their traditional source of subsistence. Wild ferns which they used to collect for food and for sale are gone. Water from the river is no longer drinkable and it supplies fewer fish now. Animal raids, once rare, now occur every two or three months. “Most of the 150 villagers in Sukau face economic insecurity,” reveals villager Sahdin Lias. “The creation of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary further threatens to lock up our last available resource. People used to ask: & #8216;Why give land to orang utans and not to people? & #8217; & #8217; & #8217; To show that conservation of the primate and economic development can go hand in hand, KOCP is helping the village develop a community-based orang utan tourism project. Support also comes from the Sabah Wildlife Department and the Danish Agency for Development Assistance. Opportunities for ape tourism are plentiful in Lower Kinabatangan, Sahdin believes. “The public is fascinated by orang utans and are eager to contribute to their conservation.” Sahdin has been with KOCP since it started five years ago and now he heads a team of seven research assistants tasked with establishing the tourism project. It will serve as a model for similar schemes in other Kinabatangan villages. “The community-based tourism allows the community to control the direction of tour-ism in the village. They manage the activity so that it supports them, respects their culture and educates the visitor.” A company owned and managed by locals, Red Ape Encounters, has been formed. Once it is registered as an Inbound Tour Operator, the tours will start. The trips will have an edge over existing tour operator-run river cruises in Kinabatangan as it is linked up with a conservation and research project. Visitors will get to visit the KOCP research station, a 5sqkm site near Sukau. They will be briefed on research work and conservation plans before trekking into the forest to observe wild orang utans and researchers at work. A boat safari for wildlife viewing, a staple of visits to the Kinabatangan, is scheduled too. Accommodation will be at Sukau home-stays where visitors can participate in the daily activities of their host families for a Sabahan cultural experience. As it is a community benefit-sharing project, surpluses from visitor payments will go into two community funds & #8211; the tourism fund and the conservation fund. The community tourism venture promises to bring in business and job opportunities. It bodes well for the long-term viability of the wildlife sanctuary for it may prove that it pays to protect the orang utans. & #8211; By Tan Cheng Li <p> ________________________ Your one-stop information portal: The Star Online http://thestar.com.my http://biz.thestar.com.my http://classifieds.thestar.com.my http://cards.thestar.com.my http://search.thestar.com.my http://star-motoring.com http://star-space.com http://star-jobs.com http://star-ecentral.com http://star-techcentral.com 1995-2003 Star Publications (Malaysia) Bhd. All rights reserved. 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