Mapping rubber plantations
In August 2023, Olivia Cosby and Christ Hani visited the two longhouses to continue conversations from May 2022 and February 2023 that explored building a new community-led collaboration with Sarawak Forestry (SFC), Smithsonian Institution (SI), and Community Conservation (CC). In earlier conversations, the communities identified replanting rubber tree plantation areas with a diversity of fruit trees beneficial to orangutans, hornbills, and the communities, as well as removing invasive Bellucia pentamera trees. In addition to discussing the new approach, the communities began mapping rubber plantation sites with Olivia and Hani in order to identify potential sites for establishing wildlife monitoring by the community.
Watch Olivia’s Instagram story from the trip.
Wildlife monitoring activities
In January 2024, a larger team returned to initiate wildlife monitoring activities prior to clearing invasive trees and planting fruit trees later in the year (approx. May-July). The monitoring will help community members compare changes in wildlife presence in response to habitat modifications. The team began training community members to use audio-recorders and climate sensors to supplement camera trapping, laying the foundation for community members to lead monitoring efforts in the future. In total, the communities established 19 wildlife-monitoring plots within degraded rubber plantations, old longhouse sites, and along the boundary of the sanctuary. Sites within old longhouse sites, locally referred to as “tembawai”, and sites located along the LEWS boundary will serve as controls, or comparison sites, for the restored rubber plantation areas.
Different community approaches
One interesting outcome of discussions with the communities is that they have chosen different initial approaches to carrying out activities. One longhouse has proposed managing plots and a shared nursery in one large community team that includes women while the other longhouse has proposed working in family teams to manage plots and family tree nurseries.
Next steps
The next stages of the project will include trips planned for March and May. In March, our partners, the Sarawak Forestry Corporation, will continue the community training on protocols for collecting data from cameras, audio recorders, and climate meters. They will also conduct phenology surveys for presence/absence of trees producing fruit along the border of the plots. In May, we will focus on developing a strategy for achieving each community’s long-term goals under the project and supporting their vision for a governance and management of the project by the communities. We will also host a cross-community gathering at the local school so that communities can learn how the other longhouse is approaching the project and sharing results from data collected in March 2024.
Will they be reintroducing Orangutans into these reclaimed forests or are they already there? Will be there be studies on the wildlife as to before the reforestation vs after reforestation?
This site is home to one of the largest populations orangutans in central Borneo, in part because the sanctuary connects with two other protected areas (Batang Ai National Park, and Betung Kerihun National Park in Indonesia). Because the communities border these protected areas, wildlife are present in the community’s forests throughout the year, and these forests create a buffer between the protected areas and more degraded commercially logged areas. This project hopes to expand the amount of habitat available to wildlife by making improvements to regions of the community forest that have become degraded. Establishing the wildlife monitoring plots prior to restoration activities will allow us to track changes in wildlife use over the course of the study. The community will have real-time updates on how their activities are influencing local wildlife 🙂
Orangutans are already there, but because of the human activity and forest changes, they do not come as near to the longhouse areas as they did before. Rehabilitating these forest patches will provide more good habitat for orangutans, hornbills, etc. We are setting the camera traps and acoustic monitors so we can understand how rehabilitation of these forest patches impacts the wildlife.
There are already orangutan there but they do not come as near to the longhouses as they did before. Rehabilitation of the forest patches will mean more good habitat for orangutan, hornbills, and other wildlife. We are setting the camera traps and acoustic monitors so we can compare before and after restoration.