Dermakot forest teserve

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Its been a while since i v publish anything on travelblog, been a busy and adventurous year for the state of borneo and its tourism industry..a challenging one with that. once of the interesting places which is quite new or it has been there but not much promotion and also because it s forestry reserve is dramakot.

Back ground:



Deramakot Forest Reserve is managed in accordance with good forestry practices. It was certified as such by the FSCTM (Forest Stewardship CouncilTM) in September 1997 and currently in its 5th certification period which expires in October 2019, making it the longest certified tropical rainforest in the world.

Realising the reality of forest depletion, the Sabah Forestry Department with technical support from the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) of Germany, have developed a management system aimed at responsible production of timber for logged over forestlands in 1989. The system requires substantial investments in forest planning, infrastructure, low impact harvesting equipment, and training of foresters, managers and forest workers in new techniques.

The objective is to begin with the application of ecologically and scientifically acceptable forest management to the logged-over Commercial Forest Reserves of Sabah. The intent is to manage the commercial forest reserves in a way that mimics natural processes for production of low volume, high quality, high priced timber products in a sustainable manner. Sustainability is defined in terms of balance nutrient cycles, forest structure, biodiversity, forest function and socio-economic needs.

Deramakot FR was chosen as the model forest for best forest management practices.



The one thing dramakot has is its natural salt licks and this is where animals are more common to be seen. i spend a littile bit over a month with a medai crew from Japan (NHK) in filming the widllife and the salt licks around this area and we had loads of captured films of orang utans, pigmy elephants, gibbons, cloweded leapoard..and more.

It took quite a while just to plan on how we where going to coordinate and which location to film this animals that would come down and visit the salt licks. after a few days of research we identified a few location than theres the hide that i would need to build a hide for the crew in order not to be spoted by the animals while they are being filmed.

It took a while to build the hide as we need to find the materials and since there was only the floor board that was brought in to the area the rest we had to improvise which most of it would have to be natural vines to tie the joints and natural trees as pillar. days after days we planed and film this animals that would come down and lick the salt out of the small puddles orang utans with babys and single orang utans would make it a must on alternate days coming to the salt lick. We would also do a night filming in another location as bats would swope down and crawl on the ground towards the puddle of salt and lick it up,...this was challenging as it took us 10 days non stop going to this location where the bat would land and crawl to the salt lick. the presents of strangers mad it just fly by and not land until it was confidant that we where not a threat to it on that final night it landed.

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