World Environment Day Celebrations

JKKK Sukau World Environment Day Celebrations in Kampung Sukau, Kinabatangan, Sabah, Malaysia.

5th to 9th of June 2008

Two kindergarten girls rejoice as they make it successfully across the orang-utan bridge at the Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Project (KOCP) exhibition booth during World Environment Day celebrations in Sukau.

Summary of World Environment Day Celebrations 2008 In 2007, HUTAN brought up the idea to celebrate World Environment Day (WED) in Kampung Sukau as part of a community awareness initiative. Subsequently, WED was organised and enthusiastically embraced by the local community. Following this response, HUTAN decided to organise the event once again in 2008 on a larger scale. The organising committee for WED was made up of HUTAN together with the villagers of Sukau, Red Ape Encounters, the Sabah Wildlife Department and the Sabah Environmental Education Network. It was decided that the celebrations would span over five activity filled days. Their was one significant difference with WED theme “Kick the Carbon Habit! Towards a Low Carbon Economy” as the organising committee realised that for their village it would not be an affective theme. Instead the committee choose something closer to them and focussed on the Kinabatangan River and arranged a number of activities surrounding the river. HUTAN co-director Dr Isabelle Lackman-Ancrenaz said the aim of the celebration was to empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development. The celebrations included the participation of exhibitors from a number of Governmental and Non Governmental Agencies: • Kinabatangan Orang-Utan Conservation Project (KOCP), • Sabah Parks, • Sabah Wildlife Department, • Sabah Environmental Education Network, • Department of Environment, • Environmental Protection Department, • Fisheries Department, • Sabah Foundation, • SOS Rhino, • Rainforest Discovery Centre, • Health Department of Sukau, • Habitat Enterprise. Villagers from the Kinabatangan and tourists also had the opportunity to visit exhibitions on the rich natural heritage of the Orang Sungai (River People) and understand current conservation status and threats. Their was also educational jungles trails and boat cruises, and specially designed programmes (by KOCP’s Environmental Awareness component) for children which included games, competitions, puppet shows and films. -2-

“This is what will happen if we don’t save our forest today,” said the narrator as students of SK Sukau presented their skit on wildlife and nature at the launching of WED celebrations.

Year Four student Adi who played the role of the “deer” during the skit (pictured left), pays attention to the information at the Department of Environment booth.

Children competed to put together puzzles of orang-utan in the fastest possible time.

The “Magic Show” was a hit at the WED celebrations.

Form 2 and Form 1 students, Mohd. Rizal and Johari Jamal (respectively) enjoy themselves as they play a “geographic globe” game at the KOCP exhibition booth.

Children race to put puzzles together at the Environmental Protection Department exhibition booth

-3-

The celebrations began with the launch on the 5th of June which was officiated by the Kinabatangan District Officer, Abdul Latiff Kandok on behalf of the Kinabatangan Member of Parliament Datuk Bung Moktar Radin. Unfortunately, Bung Moktar was unable to attend as Parliament sitting had been extended that week. In his speech that was read by Abdul Latiff, the MP also touched on the “International Workshop on the Conservation of the Bornean Elephant” which was held at the end of May in Kota Kinabalu in which HUTAN was also involved with. The Workshop had resolved to call for a stop to any sort of development (primarily, palm oil) within 500 metres from river banks. This is significant for the local community and wildlife of the area as the Kinabatangan River has unfortunately been encroached upon in the past by palm oil plantations that plant all the way up to the river’s edge. It was also resolved at the workshop that there is a need to gazette all forested state land at the banks of the Kinabatangan river as part of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary. This would provide additional protected areas for wildlife such as the orangutan and Borneo Pygmy Elephant. The Member of Parliament appreciated that such recommendations were made based on scientific data and research carried out by organisations such as the Sabah Wildlife Deparment and partners such as HUTAN.

Kinabatangan District Officer, Abdul Latif Kandok (left) is briefed by Kinabatangan Orang-utan Conservation Project (KOCP) Research Officer, Rosman Sakong on how the team collects data on orang-utan parasites while Programme Co-ordinator Dato Md. Ahbam Abulani (middle) looks on. -4-

Numerous competitions were also held with a football tournament that saw over 70 teams attempting to take part but places only for 21 teams! The 21 teams battled it out (with great enthusiasm) on a incredibly muddy field due in part to tropical afternoon showers over two days to claim a trophy of an elephant made out of recycled materials.

The winning team, from the neighbouring village of Abai score a goal in the finals against runners-up Suan Lamba Division 3. Incidentally, the goalkeeper won the Best Goalkeeper award. Other competitions included Best Decorated Booth, Best Handicraft (made from recycled materials), Best Decorated Boat (using recycled materials) and so forth. All trophies were hand crafted with recycled materials by Asrin bin Abdullah, a local villager who has been encouraged by HUTAN to make such materials. Asrin also made the very popular bigger than life size orang-utan replica which took him two weeks to complete. The replica drew children during the entire exhibition (below).

-5-

Some of the trophies created by Asrin for WED

Most encouraging of all was the level of local community involvement as well as ownership and pride they had in the event. Speaking on behalf of the village at the closing ceremony, Pastor bin HJ Mansor, a villager and co-chair of the organising committee stated, “I am proud to be here this year together with everyone in this village...the Kinabatangan is a gift of nature that is priceless, which is why we should celebrate World Environment Day and recognise the importance of the river”. Contributions made by HUTAN which marked its 10th year in Sukau were acknowledged by the Assistant District Officer of Kinabatangan, Arisin bin Arifin at the closing of the event on behalf of the State Assemblymen for Sukau, Saddi Abdul Rahman. “The youth in this village used to have very little employment opportunities and they would have to move to Sandakan and other bigger towns, today they work in Sukau as researchers and tour guides. Some of them have also traveled overseas to the United States, Japan, Indonesia and other countries to share their experiences,” said Saddi.

-6-

The event also received wide media coverage in both local (State-wide) and national (Country-wide) newspapers as well as air-time over the national television station, RTM. News items were published on the opening and closing of the event and feature articles are still coming out on the event a month later. Articles were also published in Malay, Chinese and Kadazan languages allowing WED event a wide range of audience, primarily in the State of Sabah as well as on a national level (Malaysia).

-7-

WED is celebrated annually on the 5th of June since it was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1972. Today, it is celebrated in over 100 countries worldwide. The villagers of Sukau now consider WED a calendar event and fully expect to be part of it next year. They want more people to attend as they realise how special their village is in terms of wildlife and nature and they want to share this with everyone. Other NGO and Governmental Agencies that took part in the celebrations were equally impressed by the local community’s response to the event. The fact that the event generated so much press coverage shows that community and environmental involvement/awareness is an issue of growing importance and crucially, growing interest in Malaysia. Of course, this event would not have been possible without the financial (and otherwise) contributions we received from our donors. The cost of organising and staging this five day event (without taking into account the cost of manpower), was approximately RM90,000 (US$30,000).

-8-