The art of selective felling

I was at Temenggor Forest Reserve, Perak. Malaysia. At Perak Integrated Timber Complex (PITC) here, tall giant dipterocarp trees have been selective logged for almost a decade now. The event that will remain with me forever is seeing a 2-m girth dipterocarp tree stoop to ground within ten minutes of work with a chainsaw. But more about that later. First, some good memories from the time there.

We all slept in two-person tents except a few who got rooms. Pasoh Forest Reserve camp was a bed and breakfast resort in comparison with the field conditions at PITC; there was no electricity, generators were turned on from 6 pm till midnight, no phones and internet, no shops 30 km in any direction. In short, it was perfect! Our daily activity included going to the river for a swim and wash-up. After noticing that there were only two bathrooms, some of us preferred a slippery walk to the river twice a day; the river was cold and beautiful and the swim there was refreshing. Mornings we walk sleepily to the river 200 m away and the evenings we walk tired from the proceedings of the day; but the river was always something to look forward to. On our first walk to the river, Dtoon and I fell right on our bottoms and it was a lesson learnt there on to tread carefully. In the beginning Pradeep from Sri Lanka, Dtoon from Thailand, Param from Bangalore and I were the few who colonised the river, but in the end it was so much fun there was none of us who never went to the river for a wash.

Evenings after field work we would play Sepak-takro, a south-east Asian version of volleyball, except that you cannot use hands, only the chest, head and feet, like in football. We thought it would take us weeks to learn, but after just a couple of days we were not too bad! The locals who can even smash the takro with a banana kick must have surely had some laughs though!

We also saw an Orang asli community village, which looked similar to villages in north-east India or other parts of India. Presently an epidemic of Dengue and malaria was on in the village, so we were not allowed to meet them.

Our group project (Lillian, Por, and me) was on butterflies. The three days we got lost, found our way, fell, slipped, missed butterflies, and caught butterflies, all in all super fun! At the end of three day data collection we found that forest and roads harbour distinct butterfly communities and we did some statistical-analysis and got these clear patterns. The event I wil never forget is a close encounter with a Malayan tree nymph. 

We were supposed to catch one individual per species, kill it by placing inside a bottle with formaldehyde gas and mount each specimen onto an entomologists’ board. So the tree nymph that rarely descends two metres above ground was right in front of me, I instinctively swung the butterfly net I had, but it escaped mainly due to the excitement I was in, and then I caught him again but this time the wrong side of the net and all the while the two project partners were screaming ‘catch it catch it’. But even the second round failed and by then the nymph figured we were upto no good and I was happy that he escaped, would have been a pity to kill such a beautiful large slow-moving butterfly. We inventorised 45 species overall in our project which is high diversity to be encountered in just three days.

Then was the day I will never forget. We visited sector 5 of the forest where selective logging was being undertaken. The men chose a large tree in a business-as-usual way and we were wondering if they would really do it, they did. Two photographs of the forest, one with the tree and one without, notice the canopy gap made in ten minutes.

Moving on to less tragiv memories, we were also lucky to meet Dr. Christine Fletcher who has worked many years on bats so she and her team actually set out harp-traps and we saw three species of insectivorous bats up-close.

The last day we packed up and were ready to leave with mostly good memories, one very bad one. We were also given various talks about how the system is designed and how they follow the rotation method which ensures significant tracts of forests are left, but none of these convinced us. While the big tree fell, it also took down three other trees of medium size. I doubt I can be ever convinced that bringing down large trees selectively can help in maintaining a forest.

Pasoh afterglow

Two reasons for the title; Pasoh is forever etched in my mind, for all the good times in the forest and the great people I met there. The second that the forest floor indeed has afterglow! After the sun sets, the leaf litter glows reflecting moonlight; we noticed that even when there is no moon they reflect dim light probably starlight, or perhaps the fungus on the leaf litter itself glows rather than reflecting light. We planned several times to take a tripod with us and photograph this with about an hour exposure or more, but the times we lugged a tripod it rained, so we could not capture it. It will remain a vivid afterglow memory.

We did several night walks, particularly because Pradeep from Sri Lanka and I took up nocturnal amphibians as our independent research project. The first frog-sampling evening, this calm assertive creature walked by. John Steinbeck described a land turtle's walk as it crossed the road as a determined, resilient creature, symbolizing the migrant worker's struggle!

The first night walk was quite uneventful right till the end. But then Dtoon, who is from Thailand was with us; an expert herpetologist with sharp eyes and deadly reflexes. We spotted a gecko on a tree, Pradeep gently pushed it down with a long stick and Dtoon managed to jump and catch it. We got a good look and then released it.

Next, Dtoon saw a snake on the tree bark, same sequence of events except no one jumped on to it. Pradeep carefully handled it, we photographed and released it; a non-poisonous bridled snake.

We saw some frogs too, which was the main theme for the nightwalks for our research project.

                                                                                                                

And we spotted another beautiful gecko too. We knew its home since every night we used to see the individual in the same tree bark.

We saw a few snakes in the day time too.

At the end of the project we were very tired staying up for several hours a night in the forest and turning leaf litter searching for frogs and doing the field course in the day. I am thankful to all the folks who accompanied us: Dtoon, Sze-leng, Alyse, Lillian and Panitnard to Pradeep for teaching me about frogs in Pasoh and how to find them.

Next up is a post on PITC, Perak Integrated Timber Complex in Temenggor forest reserve in Perak State, just below Thailand.

Late Russell Wallace, here I come!

“It (the Malay archipelago) produces the giant flowers of the Rafflesia, the great green-winged ornithoptera (princes among the butterfly tribes), the man-like Orang-utan, and the gorgeous Birds of Paradise” – Alfred Russell Wallace, in the “Malay Archipelago”

With these words ringing in the back of my mind, I entered Peninsular Malaysia for a fully funded field course by the Centre for Tropical Forest Science. The course lasted six weeks so there is much to write about along with some photographs. However, I cannot keep my promise of uploading beautiful 50 mm lens pictures as the airport X-ray scanner damaged them during the luggage scan; I should have carried them in my hand baggage. 

At the outset, I would like to thank Manup, Dia, Pradeep, Lillian, Liwen, Alyse, Lydia, Param, Mumu, Ummul, Rhett, Rin, Rhona, Dtoon, big mama, Cici, Sandy, Du, Sze-leng, Juni, Kang min & Por for being there and for such an amazing time, and I will be putting up some of the photographs of these people that survived the airport scan. THANKS Pasoh - Field course folks! Terima kasih!!!

As I entered Pasoh, a line that Juni my friend in the above photograph said struck me and will remain with me for the next six weeks: a garden amidst oil-palm. This is a good four-word description of Pasoh forest, which is roughly about 17 sq. km amidst ever-expanding oil palm plantations. But the core area of this forest will be preserved mainly since it is being utilised for intensive research. In the year 1985, a 50-ha permanent plot was established here to monitor growth, recruitment and mortalities of lowland evergreen forest tree species, of which so little is known. So the good news is, the 50 ha will remain for a long time, at least till research on lowland forests here is on!

Mornings began with White-handed gibbon calls, which last the first two hours of the day and the occasional 3-note ‘Kha-Khoo-Khaan’ of the dusky leaf monkey. We also often heard the helicopter-like sound of Wreathed hornbills flying by and occassionally we were lucky enough to see them. After being briefed about Pasoh, about the CTFS and the 50-ha plot, we headed straight to the most interesting part of Pasoh, the ~60 m tall tower. View from the top? Photographs are arranged such that the view from all the sides is captured.

 

The canopy tower, 2-3rd way up.

The last photograph is of the tower 2-3rd way up, there was still a wing which some of us whodared the wind and the sway climbed.

For the next few weeks we were taught entomology, ornithology and primatology basics which we thoroughly enjoyed. We also went to the town once in a while (once, actually in the four weeks!), city folks that we were! We walked several kilometres taking in the sights and then we had some ginger beer, which is not really beer, but much tastier than beer. 

The leaf litter almost everywhere in Pasoh glows dimly at nights due to a fungus that forms on dead and sometimes fresh leaves. The next blogpost is about the night walks in Pasoh—snakes, frogs and geckoes.

The long walk on the highway