“By george, Henry. I think we nailed a Gunda ochracea Walker,” exclaimed Jeremy Holloway, a hint of exuberance in his voice. He had been hunting for this moth species since his accent to Mount Kinabalu. At approximately 1,050 metres, around noon, he finally pieced together one of the three genus of the gunda Walker species first identified in 1862. A rare spot, and Henry Barlow, Jeremy’s faithful research associate dutifully documents the find which he would later compile into what would be the world’s foremost publication in moths lepitdoptera.
Further up northwest from Mount Kinabalu, down at sea level, towards the Malaysian Philippines border, lay the world’s first transboundary marine turtle hatchery. “Throw that plastic bag into the sea, and you’ll help wipe out 50 eggs,” Nicholas Pilcher gestured to me as I held a bag with an empty cola can. He had the right to be perturbed. As our speed boat whizzed towards Pulau Bakungan Kecil off the coast of Sabah, I was handed a lesson on the continuous decline of turtle populations and nesting frequencies in the region. That innocuous transparent plastic bag, was one of possible causes for the decimation of the Hawksbill sea turtles. Their peril: Hawksbill cannot differentiate it from jellyfish.
Three months later and a mountain range away, hidden deep within the sanctum of the Crocker Range is a tropical highland dividing the west coast and the interior regions of Sabah. One hundred and fifty biologists and environmental scientists have set up camps at three different sites to study and collect specimens on a collaborative effort for the first time. “This scientific expedition,” explains Professor Murtedza “Ted” Mohamed, “is just one tiny step towards inventorying the biodiverse components and ecological processes found within the park area.” As Ted sized up the task of managing the expedition ahead, mammalist drool at the prospects of spotting the rare Nycticebus coucang (slow loris) and Manis javanica (scaly ant-eater).
Hunting for endemics – whether moths, long horn beetles, sea turtles, birds, medicinal plants or ferns – is one reason for this expedition, and one reason why zoologists, ornithologists and biologists risk their comfort to wallow in the deep sea and scale mountainous pristine rain forests. Continuous activities such as the above, serves to testify and cement South East Asia’s reputation as a rich, untapped resource centre for convergence of biodiversity researchers from all over the world.
It was a matter of time before all these resources and research accumulated over the years, and continuously growing, would have to be made easily accessible to all interested. Enter the ASEAN Review of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation (or better known as ARBEC). ARBEC, the brainchild of Professor Ghazally Ismail, Deputy Vice Chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) was conceived in October 17 1997 at Frankfurt, Germany. The initial idea for ARBEC was to create an electronic platform to publish review papers on research in the field of biodiversity within the ASEAN region.
However, as the concept grew in stature, the prospect for expansion began to take on another dimension, that of providing an electronic platform to link up South East Asian biologists and ecologists all over the world as well as other authorities on the subject matter. For the first time ever a cost effective, common gateway was initiated to provide these authorities a means to access information on the latest researches in the South East Asia in real time. Previously, such information was relayed only through the publication of occasional papers, as well as through meetings at regional conferences.
But ARBEC changed all of that. Within the first year of its implementation, the platform witnessed several groundbreaking milestones:
· Delayed webcast of a major biodiversity conference via the internet · Digital capture of the scientific expedition to the Crocker Range, Sabah · Linking up with major natural history museums in Europe and the United States · Creation of localised, indigenous virtual museums of natural history · Breaking news of local biodiversity research and the instantaneous relay of such information world wide i.e. stories of the dying dugongs, launch of Malaysia’s National Biodiversity Policy, Sarawak’s endangered coral reefs, Asia Pacific’s periled plight of the Sea Turtles etc. · First online journal in biodiversity published over the internet for institutional subscription.