Kinabatangan Corridor of Life

It’s common for those who call themselves ‘environmentalist’ doing jobs under the sun and yes not to mention under the rain. Being an outdoor person, I don’t mind all those things (just don’t put me too long indoor, or else,I’ll get rotten! (><,).

Frankly speaking, for the past three years getting myself involve in environmental field, I’ve been to so many places in Sabah (sampai di pisuk-pisuk Sabah sudah saya masuk merantau ni;)). Well that’s the way my job is. Most of the time, I will go to places via roads; an advantage for me to get to know the “road less taken” or “short-cuts” to minimize our travelling time (nahh..buli sudah saya ikut “short-cut” hehe). 

The crew

My most memorable work trip?.. That would probably be the Kinabatangan Corridor of Life. I was up there in the blue sky flying in a chopper (1^st time tu naik chopper ;P).

So what was i doing up there?.. Aerial survey! I used to do socio survey (you know when you go into villages and start asking 'boring' questions? i.e: Berapa lama sudah kamu tinggal di kampung ni? Dari mana sumber air kamu? bla bla bla.. fuhhh...><, 

But this time we did survey from up above. We were trying our best to identify the places, rivers and perhaps elephants (mmmnope.. it wasn't my luck to see even a glimpse of an elephant from up there). We took off from Sabah Air (Sandakan branch) and the journey started from Sandakan town, flew over the Berhala island then heading to Kinabatangan area. The view was spectacular. Armed with my nikon camera  (sadly it's not a dslr, if only i brought it that day ;( )and maps in my hand, i tried my best to identify the places we discussed earlier. 

Flying low over the Kinabatangan River.

It was much easier then to see everything from up there. There was once we flew over some villages in Sukau, when i thought i saw someone was having a shower in a poorly constructed bathroom (open air lagi tu! hehehe notty, notty me!). Those who noticed us waved up. Excited, we waved them back.

an oxbow lake

Up here, i could see two types of view; beautiful scene of mother nature and a scene where mother nature has been 'tortured' by human race;  illegal logging. It is of no wonder why our forest is depleting day by day. 

And that's the reason of the establishment of the Kinabatangan Corridor of Life - aims to establish a balance between the growing demands of private land development, the local community and the need to protects its unique wildlife!

Kinabatangan river.

It was a great pleasure to be able to work with WWF and doing some GIS works. I enjoyed the air trip as well (^^,). 

And not forgetting Mr. Will for treating us ikan bakar for lunch after the trip haha.

The KCOL crews (hmm shouldn't do the vignetting..)

Seriously I don’t think those with a family would love to have a job like me. Anyone in my shoes will have to travel a lot and be resilient. 

But anyway, for me it’s fun (ok lah daripada saya duduk terjeruk di upis hahaha).

~N'gelz~