Students conduct Biology fieldwork in Bako.
RECENTLY, while reading David Attenborough’s magnificent book, ‘Life on Air – The Memoirs of a Broadcaster’, memories flooded back to my idyllic childhood set in a relatively remote Cornish village in the far southwest of England. As children, my sister and I, in the long summer days, roamed in farmers’ fields, unafraid of cattle, played in hay fields and jumped up and down while bouncing on a nearby swamp which we called, ‘the magic carpet’! We built dams across rivers and tree camps with our childhood friends, away from our home and without parental fears of abuse. When asked by our parents, “Where are you going?” We replied, “Down to the fields behind the house.”
Today, 70 years later, the swamp has been drained and a secondary school built on that site; the fields have been replaced with housing estates and the field boundaries ‘grubbed out’; the trees have been cut down and the rivers diverted into concrete culverts. Tarmac roads permeate the region with massive roundabouts, all in the interests of so-called human progress and ‘signs of development’. I could wax lyrical upon the destruction of a once beautiful natural scenario where badgers, foxes, rabbits and many other animals, insects, fish, and birdlife dwelt.
At secondary school, the nature bug bit me and I became fascinated in landscape geography, river, and coastal features, and inevitably as a Cornishman with the weather as the winter storms drove in from the nearby Atlantic Ocean, washing three sides of the peninsula on which I lived. Later at university I specialised in meteorology and geomorphology only to teach Geography at A’ level and pre-University standard for some 31 years.
Fieldwork was and is rightly a major part of the subject’s course content with hands and on experience and dirt under one’s nails. I still possess a large chunk of Carboniferous limestone containing a giant ammonite which I found whilst as a 16-year-old student on a Geography fieldtrip. My interest in fieldwork focussed on leading student fieldwork expeditions at weekends and in school holiday time to mountainous landscapes in Britain, ranging from sounding the highest glaciated lake (tarn) in the English Lake District to river, mass movement and soil studies in Dartmoor, Exmoor and the Peak District National Parks.
It was the Easter of the Millennium Year that I bid farewell to Geographical fieldwork, after a 19 day expedition, leading 26 senior UK students on fieldwork exercises in Sabah to include scaling Mount Kinabalu.
Biologists in action – Bako Rocks!
One Saturday in April this year, Borneo International School’s Year 11 went on a Biology field trip to explore animal and plant life at Bako National Park. The students were brought closer to nature in their research by taking the Teluk Pandan Kecil Trail, observing how living organisms adapt to their various habitats and thus appreciating the biodiversity within this national park.
In particular they studied the interactions between ants and ant plants in the kerangas forests discovering how ants act as seed dispersers. Pitcher plants, dragon flies and sundew plants were also studied. Kerangas comes from the Iban meaning, ‘the land that cannot grow rice’ because the soils are lacking in nitrogen and highly acidic owing to the underlying sandstone bedrock. The Spoonleafed sundew (Drosera spatula var bakoensis), the largest of carnivorous plants that lure, capture, and digest insects using specialised adaptations was also seen.
Perhaps the wonders of nature are best captured in the written words of one student, “Upon reaching the beach at Bako, there is this surreal effect we experienced from nature itself. The environment was quiet and so greenish. We heard birds chirping, insects buzzing but admittedly it’s a bit eerie.
“Overall, we had a phenomenal experience. We also observed different gradients of colour in the soils. Nature is pretty fascinating. We came across a dead ant plant split into half. The mutualistic association with this colony of ants living in the ant plant was truly complex to an unimaginable extent.”
Geography is fun!
Later in June, the Year 10 Geography and Biology students carried out river studies along the Sungai Pedia near Kampung Tringgus in the Bau District. They studied the relationships of river velocity and river channel depth and width in determining the wetted perimeter of the river. Submerged up to waist-level, they thrived in getting close to nature. Such studies, whilst an essential part of their course syllabus, bring out the very best in students and make them realise the beauty of rural surroundings, breathing truly fresh air far from their city lives.
Students in Kampung Tringgus conduct Geography river measurements.
Amazing green spaces
Sabah’s and Sarawak’s cities are fortunate to have countryside so nearby. Kota Kinabalu has the Tunku Abdul Raman Marine Park right on its doorstep, with the Mount Kinabalu National Park all but a 45-minute drive away and the nearby Crocker Range. It has the Prince Phillip Gardens and Tanjong Aru beach within the city.
Kuching has the Santubong peninsula, again only 45 minutes away, and many National Parks within striking distance with green urban lungs such as Taman Jaya Nature Reserve and The People’s Friendship Park, not to mention a multitude of green spaces.
City residents fail to realise how accessible these places are and what botanical and zoological discoveries may be observed there. We, sadly, have become ‘workaholics’, rising in the morning, working for ‘x’ hours a day, returning home to dine, sleeping before repeating the same routine from day after day.
A plea to one’s better nature
My ‘cri de coeur’ is for all people living in urban environments to ‘get out’ to explore the natural beauty of the countryside surrounding you. Children will never forget the trips to this or that place where they discovered this or that, learning as they go. A wet visit to a river or waterfall or paddling in pools on a beach, clambering up a mountain or hill trail and en route discovering botanical or zoological specimens will bring much joy and a sense of achievement to young minds.
They will always remember where they first saw a macaque or a proboscis monkey, an orangutan, a crocodile, a shark, jellyfish, rafflesia, pitcher plants, various types of primary forest trees, or even a crab!
Borneo is, indeed, blessed with so very many dynamic eco-systems; explore them today, for as I have witnessed from boyhood to manhood, what is in the local environment once in time is often gone tomorrow. It is only by getting really close to nature can childhood experiences be forever cast in one’s mind in an effort to preserve the natural environment and fight the battle against those who wish to make quick profits in releasing their natural heritage into the hands of ruthless developers. Progress is one thing, preserving a landscape is another matter!