By Jettie Word | Director
We've come a long way in the past 3 months, with our Field Technicians for the Baram Heritage Survey completing their third month of data collection this week. The survey is gathering wildlife data using transects, tracking mammals, birds and reptiles using visual sightings as well as animal signs. Lucky for us, our field technicians are all from the villages and know the land like the back of their hands. Since most of them are hunters, they have no problems identifying the trails, tracks, sounds, nests and teeth marks of a vast array of species in the Baram region.
This month, we are introducing the socio-economic component of the survey. Our field technicians will sit with people from each village and chat to them about nutrition, farming, livelihoods, their hopes for the future, and their views on how the land could and should be managed. This part of the survey will give us a more in-depth picture of how indigenous communities use and rely on their land, as well as inform grassroots strategies for forest protection.
While we have seen a lot of progress on the survey, new threats have emerged in the Baram region. Logging concessions have been renewed during COVID-19 lockdowns without the free-prior and informed consent from communities required by the Malaysian Timber Certification Council's own guidelines. We have been working with communities to expose the story and apply pressure to the logging company and certification body.
We're looking forward to the coming months. Our Field Technicians have a lot more work to do on the ground to continue spotting the sun bears, gibbons, binturong and hornbills that call this beautiful landscape home. Meanwhile, our international research team is hard at work crunching all the data. We are so grateful for your support in helping to make this happen — we could not have done any of this impactful work without our wonderful supporters. Thank you.
In solidarity,
Jettie.
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