langkawi magazine
Nature SECTION
Conservation News: News from the Scientific and Heritage Expedition Langkawi, 14 April 2003
The show must go on!
Parting is such sweet sorrow, a poet once wrote. How true. We felt that way this morning, 14 April 2003, 5th expedition day as many teams prepare to leave the base camp. We saw our biggest group, UM,break up as most of them packed their things and went, leaving only a small team behind (geography and geology), thus making way for a new batch of researchers. So did the last of the UPM team, those from USM, the Expedition?s Golden Boy from the World Fish Centre and some of the journalists.
Reluctantly, we bid our farewells, with promises to meet again, hopefully soon, perhaps in Stong! Fortunately, our sorrow, sweet non-the-less, was not long. The new faces we saw at the registration desk were smiling, and the owners enthusiastic. Great! More new friends! UKM brought in reinforcement. So they are now the biggest group represented in the expedition.
Anyway, the show must go on and so it did, with gusto! The ones left behind as well as the newcomers carried on with business, as usual and parted for the many study locations. We even had an art class in the evening on top of that, given by non other than the wonderful Teh Yew Kiang (see pix of the artist, busy teaching art hopefuls) The night was clear, no rain cloud in sight, for the first time since the Expedition was launched. Quickly settled down, the new Rafflesia team from UKM was already sharing their knowledge and findings at the 9.00 p.m nightly presentations.
Dr. Kamaruddin gave a thorough and exciting account of the Rafflesia (view a related Malaysian Naturalist article here). We learnt that perhaps Borneo is the place of origin for the plant afterall. Also, it was shocking to hear that the fantastic flora is highly threatened in Peninsular Malaysia, where the penalty is very minimal if compared to the East Malaysia's minimum RM 20000 penalty.Then, his colleagues working on the mangrove environment stepped up, to share their finding, as they were leaving the next day. Interesting how they managed to find quite a number of new potential species as well. So that was Day 5. Can?t wait for tomorrow!
Langkawi 14/04/2003
