Salvinia molesta - Our Mission!

Most people spend a chunk of their gap year acquainting themselves with weed. Most of them tend to smoke it. We chose to scoop it.

I have mentioned in previous blogs that part of what we’ve been doing here is clearing weed from the very beautiful Tungog Lake, but I haven’t told you much about it.

In a nutshell, this is a devastatingly invasive weed called Salvinia molesta which has sidled into many of Malaysia’s water ways and is steadily wreaking havoc on any ecosystems it encounters. Initially from Brazil, it’s now officially made the IUCN’s Top 100 Invasive Species list and is causing problems in huge parts of Australia, SE Asia, and the USA, so this stuff is nasty. The problem is that it can double in mass approximately every 3 days and creeps across the surface of a lake until it is covered.

**Warning Science Part**

This prevents light from entering the lake and therefore reducing the photosynthesising capacity of plants, and causing them to start to die, therefore reducing the oxygen content of the water, and increasing the presence of respiring decomposers, which in turn increases the acidity of the lake. This as you can imagine is devastating for all of the wildlife that lives in, or is dependent upon the lake.

**Science Part Over** (that’s for you Higgins…though you all know I love to bang on). Basically this weed sucks.

Bro with requisit sun-shade

In a feeble attempt to keep this short, Tungog Lake is rapidly drowning in this weed, and there is no funding available to stop it. Currently the only method of removing it is manually via a moveable pontoon, using only hand-held scoops. This is extremely slow, back-breaking work, and involves hours of hard work, with no shade and extremely high humidity. It’s not fun so no-one wants to do it. The lake is 50acres in size, and this method is so slow that even with volunteers like me and Bro working on it, we are merely slowing down its spread (perhaps worth mentioning that volunteers here are also fairly infrequent).

So…seeing that our manual efforts were getting us nowhere, Bro and I thought outside the box and decided we would try crowd-funding to raise money for specialist equipment to help remove the weed at a significantly higher rate, and enough to employ local people to remove it.

Our beautiful Lake Tungog (the tiny bit without the weed!)

Our manual efforts...not very fun!

Queue lots of discussions with the community, footage-gaining escapades (including a number of 6am starts, river trips and jungle stake-outs), trips out on the lake, setting up a mini studio on the decking with DIY studio equipment (thanks to matresses, string, sticks and gaffa tape), borrowing a drone, almost crashing the drone, then successfully using the drone, hours of editing on Bro’s part, hours of computer time in our make-shift ‘pop-up’ office (perched with our laptops on the end of a jetty using temperamental 3G internet) to set up the website. And finally….Meet….OUR CROWD-FUNDING PAGE!! http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/borneo-lake-restoration-programme

Please do have a look at the site and Brodie’s fab video which I am absurdly proud of him for. If you would like to contribute and are in a position to do so, we would be SO grateful, and please do spread the word and share the link.

Thank you in advance for letting me rattle on. Let’s see how we get on! J

Breaking Fast

On Sunday we were invited to break fast with the KOPEL (the village co-operative we’re volunteering for) board members and their families. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, breaking fast is an event that happens during Ramadan. Tradition is that Muslim families will fast during daylight hours, then will get together after sun down to have a big meal and celebrate together. It is also often used as an excuse for companies or organisations to have a get together.

KOPEL were having their monthly Board Meeting, so used this as an excuse to have a breaking fast meal afterwards with staff and their families. It was a lovely event with lots of sweaty, hyper kids (who just wanted to climb all over Bro and me and have piggy back rides), lots of the friendly faces we’re now getting to know, and lots of unfamiliar, but very friendly faces from the community. 

Despite one or two faux pas on behalf of Bro and myself (eg. Bro trying to copy the men eating with his fingers disastrously which they all found hilarious, eating the dessert with our main course as we thought it was pea soup (it was green porridge), Bro somehow bringing up circumcision with the Chairman of the Board which went down like a lead balloon…you get the gist), we really enjoyed it. 

We felt very welcome and everyone was extremely friendly. The board had also just seen the video we’ve made for our crowd funding project, so lots of them wanted to chat about it and the project and they were all extremely positive and excited about it which we found really humbling.

On the way home in the boat with Martin, Janet and the kids, we found ourselves in pitch darkness with 3 thunderstorms raging at different points on our horizon. It was magical. Martin killed the engine and we all just sat there in silence watching and listening and breathing it in. I wish I could have bottled it all up and shared it with you all….not sure I’ll experience anything like that again any time soon!

A REAL LIFE WILD ORANGUTAN!!! (And a very cool little Tarsier!)

Oh my wow, what an awesome 12 hours!! Last night one of the guides spotted a Western Tarsier in a tree so we all bundled out to see him. What a little gem!! HUGE round eyes and funny little feet and just such a cutie!! It’s very rare you get to see one of these so we were totally stoked! That alone would have made my week!

Then this morning….

We were out on the lake about 6am with our cameras hoping to catch some of the early rising birds on camera for our crowd-funding video (nb. watch this space)…For what it’s worth, this kind of thing is definitely one of those things where you think…I’m sat in a boat, on this incredible lake, in the middle of a jungle, and this is actually blowing my mind!

Now here we arrive at the point in the story I’d rather not share, but it probably needs to be included to make your image of our situation more complete….

We’re sat on the lake, in the middle of this tranquil lake paradise, when suddenly nature strikes, and I suddenly need to go to the loo. Incidentally we’d been out there 45mins and had just spotted our first kingfisher of the day, but when needs must….so we rapidly turned around and paddled in to shore so that I could run to the facilities. On my hasty way to the loo I passed a tourist fresh back from a trail with a big grin on his face…”We’ve just seen a mummy orang-utan and her baby just beyond the end of the camp!”…SAY WHAT?!!!!!! The first sighting of an actual wild orang-utan and I have to go to the loo!! There was no way I could stop so I shouted out “THAT’SAMAZINGCALLBRODIEANDTELLHIMTOGETTHECAMERASANDGOANDI’LLCATCHUPWITHHIMAFTERTHELOO!!” as I scurried past!

Of course the message was lost in translation…Brodie thought I’d ran on ahead so only brought his camera and disappeared off into the jungle so by the time I was out again there was no sign of anyone. The tourist pointed me in the direction everyone had headed, and I (thank God!) eventually found them. And it was incredible!! We watched mummy and baby for a good 15 minutes as she bashed around above. Needless to say, day, week, month, year absolutely made! J

No camera for me though, so here’s a little Tarsia photo of Brodie’s so you get a taste. 

A holiday from the jungle!

After two weeks deep in the jungle on Lake Tungog, we had a holiday. Janet, Martin, TJ and Bobbie were having a night away in Sandakan to have a break and to stock up on supplies, so they offered to take us with them. So after an early morning start, a boat ride and a 2 hour journey with four of us squished in the back of the van like sardines, we reached Sandakan. We had an absolutely fab couple of days being shown the main hotspots and taken from one lovely eatery to the next by the wonderful Vogel family.

Highlights

·        - Having English Afternoon Tea on the hillside (hot fresh scones!! Oh my wow!!...Sabah’s version of jam and cream were not quite up to Somerset standards though!)

·         -Visiting the famous Sepilok Orang-utan Rehabilitation Centre and seeing the baby orang-utans….soooo cute

·         -Having an ice cold beer overlooking the waterfront

·         -Exploring the canopy walkway amongst the immensely tall and beautiful trees of the Sepilok Forest Reserve at sunset

·         -Eating fresh salad!!

·         -Lots of good company J

Lowlights

·         -My first hot shower in two weeks was actually a cold shower and came out in a dribble. At least it didn’t involve a bucket…every cloud…

·         -Asking in a pharmacy for fibre gel to combat the lack of fresh vegetables in my life, and having the entire staff of 5 get involved. The conversation went something like this…

E: Hi, do you sell fibre gel?

Pharmacy lady 1: Fiby-what?

E:  Um…fibre gel! It’s good for your digestive system? It can help with constipation

Pharmacy lady 1: OOOOHHHHHH you have constipation?!

E: Well no, I….

Pharmacy lady 1 (calling across the shop): Oi! Pharmacy Lady 2! What do we give for constipation?!

Pharmacy lady 2: Hahahahaha! (Yes, she actually laughed out loud)

**Pharmacy lady 2 calls across the room in Malay to Pharmacy man 1. Pharmacy man 1 also laughs out loud and comes over. I now have 4 members of laughing staff in front of me**

Pharmacy man 1 (in unnecessarily loud voice): You want something to make you go toilet in 2 minutes?!!

Me: NO no nonononono! I just want some fibre gel…..

So this is how I ended up with a packet of anti-constipation tablets and no fibre gel.

So in summary….Awesome weekend, nice break from the jungle, lots of yummy food, cold shower, cute orange primates, never again need to worry about getting constipation…

Some cute piccies of some cuddly fellows from the rehabilitation centre

It's easy being Green!

Let me introduce you to Norsalleh! He is in charge of the tree nursery here. This is a wondrous place that soothes the soul and makes you feel happy just being in it. There are thousands upon thousands of happy little seedlings and saplings all lying in neat little rows waiting patiently to be taken out into the big wide world and planted. He is also in charge of the regeneration project, and is the person who will help you plant a tree if you come and visit. He is also a boat driver for the river cruises, takes us on seed walks around the forest, and just in case that’s not enough, he’s also a martial arts expert who does regular performances for the tourists. He is also deaf.

Brodie and I absolutely love this guy and there’s never a dull moment when he’s around. He’s never learned sign-language, so our communication is a series of elaborate charades which are always hilarious, and frequently cause serious mis-communication, much to our amusement. It’s easy enough communicating simple practical things like “what time shall we meet tomorrow?” and “you’re using the machete wrong” and “look how gross and sweaty I am!”, but it’s another story trying to communicate about something abstract, or someone or something that’s not in front of you or just having general chit chat about the world. Try to picture how you’d communicate “Are we transporting the seedlings tomorrow? Because if so we need to liaise with Martin before we know whether we will be free to help, so will let you know. If not, we can help the following morning.” Because this is the gist of a conversation we had with him this morning. This is also why Norsalleh occasionally turns up expecting to hang out with us, and we are already off busy doing something else. He’s very patient. We are improving though so we’ve recently started attempting to be a bit more adventurous with our subject matter, but trying to explain crowd-funding a boat, engine and man-hours to clear an invasive weed was probably still a little ambitious! 

As he has never learned sign-language, he and his friends and colleagues have developed probably the sign-equivalent of pigeon English…a kind of made-up series of code signs which they all seem to understand, and as a result they can have very complicated conversations that Bro and I attempt to follow like gawping spectators at a tennis match. We usually totally get it wrong, but it’s quite fun trying to follow!

This man is an absolute living legend so I thought he deserved a post all to himself!

Trees glorious trees!

It is all rather clichéd and predictable, but we came to Lake Tungog on a mission to plant trees to sooth our brains and make us feel a little better about the world. When we got here we realised that it’s not all about planting trees. So Far we’ve been here almost 3 weeks and I chopped more things down than I’ve planted!

Let me explain…

Everyone loves tree-planting. The thing is though, once the sapling is planted, it’s far from safe -this is a tinsy tiny sapling in a big ugly world of vines. If you took a time lapse of a forest growing to speed it up, the vines would be the sprinters, and the tree saplings the marathon-runners (slow and steady). So aside from avoiding getting too dry, or too much sun, or too little sun, these little dudes also have to try to fend off the weeds, some of which have the lovely tendency of strangling them to death!

The thing is, there is plenty of funding in places like this for tree-planting, but less for forest management. So a large part of what Bro and I are doing here is silviculture, which is where we work our way through a forest area and cut down any plants (mainly vines) that are stunting the growth of the trees, and therefore preventing the progression of the forest. It’s bloomin’ knackering and requires one scary looking machete (a pedang), a knack for avoiding severing limbs, and it always results in blisters. As I’ve mentioned before, Bro and I spent much of our first week here working with locals in an area of forest that was struggling to regenerate.

We are now working our way through one of KOPEL’s regeneration areas, which is where they are trying to reforest a corridor next to the river, which used to be palm oil. The young trees here were suffocating from being over-run with vines so our job is to remove the views and clear an area at the base of each tree to basically give them a head-start. It’s very exposed, so it’s super super hot and we’ve switched to starting work at 7am to try to get a head-start on the sunshine, but it’s actually ridiculously satisfying when you finish a tree (and shout the obligatory “BE FREE!!”), and when you look back at the end of the day and see your work, you definitely feel warm-fuzzy (and not just the sweaty kind).

This is a time-lapse we took of us one morning to give you an idea …TJ’s comment when he saw it was…”look how much brighter it is! It’s because the world know’s you’re making it better”. I like to think so J

Here are some piccies of us doing warm-fuzzy sapling-planting in the nursery!

A new friend

There has been much excitement in the camp over the last few days as we seem to have been adopted by a juvenile hill minor bird, who the kids have named Blinky (he blinks a lot). We haven’t a clue where he came from or why he decided to adopt Tungog camp and its jolly inhabitants as his new family, but came he did.

Blinky is ridiculously tame, and spends his time hopping from one person to the next, or following people around the camp. He particularly likes helping Bro and me clear the lake, which is somewhat a hindrance rather than a help as he has a habit of popping up anywhere and everywhere, chirping away noisily (his favourite place appears to be on top of Brodie’s head, much to everyone’s amusement…he clearly appreciates its nest-like qualities!).

Life in the camp…

…Is insanely hot and humid….Actually, I take that back, it's only about 30oC, but it's so humid that I am currently sweating out of my eyeballs, my toes and every inch of my body in between. I'm so spotty it's disgusting, and there is a constant swarm of mozzies anywhere you go (I got four bites on my bum just going to the toilet this morning). Our only means of showering is by filling up a hand scoop from a tap and pouring it over our heads whilst getting more mauled by mozzies!

Despite all that, this place is awesome and like nothing I’ve experienced before. We’re right in the forest, on the edge of an oxbow lake, and that means there are animals popping up all over the place. Every evening we are visited by a very screechy Buffy Fish Owl, and often have the pleasure of the odd civet cat whilst we’re having dinner. Long-tailed macaques wander around in the tree canopy (sometimes we sit and watch them from our camp deck), and Fish Eagles, Oriental Darters, Kingfishers and Broadbills (to name a few) keep us company on the lake. It’s all pretty idyllic.

Creepy crawlies on a night walk!

Male Proboscis monkey

Buffy Fish Owl

Cheeky macaques outside our camp platform

Each day we work from about 7.30 until about 4/5/6pm either off out of the camp doing silviculture and forest management, tree planting, or on the lake removing salvinia. All of it very physical, very sweaty work, but all really rewarding. Every day we get back to the camp shared area absolutely exhausted, dripping wet with sweat and stinking to high heaven.

If we’re working out of the camp, we have to walk through the forest, get picked up by our own private boat, where we have a 10minute boat ride up the Kinabatangan River, surrounded by crocs, egrets, hornbills and monkeys. How’s that for a commute?!

Our camp decks are basically elevated huts with no windows so they’re totally open to the outdoors. All we have between us and the forest is a mozzie net, so it’s pretty exposed. The lovely thing about that is you feel like you’re sleeping right in the middle of the forest. The scary thing about that is you feel like you’re sleeping right in the middle of the forest!! We’ve long given up jumping at sounds now….You just have to embrace it and keep your fingers crossed it’s an orang-utan!

Bro and Martin on the lake

Skink hunting for ants

Oriental Darter drying its wings in the sunshine

After a shower and dinner (third rice meal of the day!), we can usually just about muster the energy for a game of darts or cards with anyone who’s around. Apart from Bro and myself, there are also 3 members of staff at the camp, Martin and Janet, and their two lovely kids, TJ and Bobbie, and any other guests who happen to be staying. Occasionally there are big groups where the camp is full, and we’ve had a couple of PhD students stay, but mostly there are only one or two other guests, and occasionally there’s just us!

Sometimes if there are small groups we tag along on their night walks or river cruises to try and catch some wildlife, but without fail, we almost always crash into bed at about 9pm, absolutely wiped out, to dream about proper showers, roast dinners and a lovely big chilled glass of wine!

Macaques on the shore