KOTA KINABALU, June 5 — Borneo’s endangered wildlife will again be displayed in a new online series, Borneo Jungle Diaries, which airs today in conjunction with World Environment Day.
The series will also showcase the hard work behind the scenes to study and protect Sabah’s creatures through research.
“Borneo Jungle Diaries investigate life behind-the-scenes at the field centre,” said Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) director Benoit Goossens, who is also a lecturer at Cardiff University.
DGFC, an isolated research facility managed by Sabah Wildlife Department and Cardiff University, hosts teams of dedicated young Malaysian and international research scientists, combining field-developed gadgets and traps with state-of-the-art tracking technology in their quest to unravel the mysteries of the Kinabatangan jungle.
“DGFC’s primary mission is to safeguard Kinabatangan’s most charismatic animals through monitoring, learning and understanding,” he said.
The new webseries, produced by Scubazoo TV, follows British wildlife photographer Aaron “Bertie” Gekoski, as he shadows a different scientist at DGFC and animal each episode, from tagging a Sunda pangolin for the first time ever and gaining insight into the behaviour of nocturnal primates to tracking a herd of elephants.
The first episode of the 10-part series will be released on Scubazoo TV (scubazoo.tv) and the DGFC Facebook page today at 4pm today.
“It will be followed by one episode every week until August 7 and the episodes will highlight the following species: pangolins, reticulated pythons, otters, insects, monitor lizards, slow lorises and tarsiers, crocodiles, civets and elephants,” explained Goossens.
Four Malaysian students performing their research at the field centre — PhD students Nurzhafarina Othman, Elisa Panjang and Sai Kerisha Kntayya and one MSc student Leona Wai — are also featured in the series.
“I believe that those students can become ambassadors for wildlife conservation in Sabah and Malaysia and are examples to follow by the younger Malaysian generation of conservationists.
“I hope that this series will be appealing to young people who are interested by wildlife, especially young Malaysian students,” he added.
The web series is produced by Scubazoo, Asia’s leading natural history filming and photography company based in Kota Kinabalu, and funded by Sime Darby Foundation.
“We feel extremely privileged to have had the opportunity to partner up with DGFC and Sabah Wildlife Department for this series. Borneo Jungle Diaries is the ultimate jungle story bringing the ground-breaking work of Malaysians and people from all corners of the world to try to understand the importance of Sabah’s incredibly unique wildlife, before it’s too late.” added Scubazoo CEO and founder Simon Christopher.
Viewers also stand a weekly chance of winning a prize from DGCF to view the animals featured in the series.
To participate, viewers just have to watch the full episode and answer five related questions correctly to win a 4-day, 3-night stay at the Danau Girang Field Centre (travel and airfares not included).
More info coming soon on the Borneo Jungle Diaries page on Scubazoo.tv is available on their Facebook page.
