Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project

ISB CAS students, with ISB Director David Taylor, preparing to stake out the hectare with the local custodian of the project

Supporting a community based eco tourism group and the Kinabatangan Orang utan Conservation Project (KOCP) in Sabah, Borneo

Much of the Kinabatangan Basin in Sabah, northern Borneo has succumbed to massive oil palm plantations  which have drastically changed the lives of the indigenous peoples and the flora and fauna of the area.
ISB has linked up with one of these groups of people in the village of Sukau whose traditional way of life is being resurrected through a self help eco tourism project called Red Ape Encounters. www.redapeencounters.com

With a  kick start from the orang utan conservation NGO Hutan, villagers are being trained as research assistants and rangers helping to promote low impact tourism  in the areas of the forest that have been gazetted as wild life sanctuaries.
There are ten designated sanctuaries but each is isolated from the other by hundreds of hectares of oil palm plantation. (see map) This isolation is severely limiting the breeding capabilities of flagship species such as orang utan and pygmy elephant which are in danger of extinction over the next thirty years due to inbreeding and further habitat depletion.
ISB’s role is to assist the villagers in creating corridors of rainforest linking the sanctuaries. To this end the school has actioned its community into a recycling  and awareness raising programme that has generated sufficient funding to re plant and maintain one hectare of rainforest which will cost almost U$5000
ISB achieved this target in eleven months through collecting and selling recyclable plastic, aluminium and paper as well awareness raising T shirt and eco calendar  sales and donations from a variety of groups within the school community.
In June 06 a small group of IB Diploma CAS students undertook the long trek to Kinabatangan to stake out the ISB hectare and plant the first trees. ( see photo) During the trek to the site the group had to take a boat detour to avoid the attentions of a bull elephant in must. Ironically newly planted forest has to be protected from the elephant herds which can trample saplings planted in the regions of ‘elephant highways’; the villagers together with the elephant conservation unit have undertaken responsibility for this.
ISB intends sending more groups of students to assist in the planting of 1200 trees.
The ‘ISB hectare’ represents the first small step in what is a huge conservation project and it is hoped that other schools, institutions and donors will be able to follow the ISB lead in this very worthwhile project for Borneo.