“Animals almost never kill their own species. Humans however, are so caught up with their social, geographical and political differences, that they fail to unite under a single species cause.
I am an ecologist, and I have always been interested in nature from a young age. Growing up in Sarawak, of Iban-Malay parentage, I was surrounded by beautiful tropical rainforest. My father and I used to trek in the jungle to find earthworms for fishing, but sadly, these rainforests are no longer there.
To date, about 90{eb97150a49149dc6c9e8165e90f1c9129bb6172e02a598b4264a1fc329d7d5bc} of the Sarawak rainforests have been destroyed by logging for timber activities. We only have a few, still intact, virgin jungles.
I have been living in the deep Borneo jungles for the past seven months, conducting research on the sounds that frogs make.
I have been studying about frogs since 2012 when I did my Masters in Animal Ecology. I have never looked back since.
I was offered a placement in Imperial College London to do my PhD in Ecology and Conservation, but I wasn’t able to secure funding. It was really frustrating when that happened, but now I’m working with Imperial College as a Research Assistant.
Sometimes, I feel like our work in trying to save the jungles are pointless. We can try our very best to save the jungles, but if we are the only ones doing it, it won’t go very far.
Humans and nature should coexist in an intimate way. Somehow, humans have managed to overpower nature and exploit it. At the end of the day, others will only care about making money and pursuing their own self interest.
That’s the sad truth of human nature.”
Photostory by Amalina Davis
Edited by Mushamir Mustafa
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(This post was first published on October 12th 2018)
