Project update 11: First data retrieval for Project Black Cloud

Things have been a bit quiet here on the home front as Reuben has been frantically wrapping up his PhD, and Laurie has been knee-deep (sometimes literally!) in camera-trapping. But finally,  after quite a bit of a lull, we now have a new project update to share with you! Laurie reports from the field.

© Laurie Hedges / Rimba
© Laurie Hedges / Rimba

After trekking through the forests of Kenyir for the past month, all the camera traps have finally been visited, and the photos they have been quietly collecting for the past two months have been viewed in the first data retrieval for Project ‘Black Cloud’. The results could not have been more positive!

Continue reading

Video update 4: In celebration of Earth Day

Earth Day 2013 logo

Today is Earth Day. Around the world, numerous communities have organised an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues. If you can, dedicate this day, or even this week, to do some good for this planet. Re-use. Recycle. Check to see if your timber, paper, coffee and seafood originate from environmentally-friendly sources. Bring your own shopping bag. Limit your use of plastic. Most importantly, limit your overall consumption. Reduce! If you are followers of our website and Facebook page, you are probably already doing most of this. But if you are not, tsk tsk! Remember, it’s not too late to change your habits 🙂

To celebrate this occasion, we are launching a 2-minute video that pays tribute to the forests and wildlife in one of Rimba’s project sites – the Kenyir Wildlife Corridor. The first video is in English and the second is in Bahasa Malaysia. Please share this with as many people as you can to raise public awareness of the threats facing Kenyir’s and Malaysia’s rainforests.

KWC

KWC_BM

Saving Mother Earth requires more than just changing our lifestyles. It’s also about fighting to ensure we have enough biodiversity left so that our forests can function optimally. Healthy rainforests are needed to stem the tide of climate change and to provide us with important ecosystem services. We need a jungle out there.

In the Kenyir Wildlife Corridor Project, we are still trying to improve the protection of this corridor by working with the Terengganu state government to gazette the corridor as a protected area and to enhance anti-poaching efforts.

To find out how you can help this and other Rimba projects, click here.

Publication update 14: Does social media ‘like’ conservation?

Does Social Media 'Like' Conservation?

This publication is somewhat different from the rest. Spearheaded by Lahiru, it’s a short note on the role of social media, such as Facebook, in conservation messaging.

Many of you have been following us on our Facebook page (the blue Facebook widget tucked into the banner at the top of this site will take you there), which we set up 2 years ago to raise awareness and concern about biodiversity conservation. Over time, we noticed that certain posts got a lot more attention and ‘likes’ than others. When the viral attention received by one particular post we shared shocked even us, Lahiru decided to conduct a little experiment…

Read more about our results and conclusions below, which we submitted to The Scientist, and are now available online:

Wijedasa L.S., Aziz S.A., Campos-Arceiz A. and Clements G.R. 2013. Does Social Media “Like” Conservation? The Scientist. 8 April.