Hanging...

It’s not for nothing that Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo island is promoted as a place where one can enjoy nature and adventure in its fine element from the mountain top to the bottom of the sea. If divers can enjoy one of the world’s finest, if not the finest, wall diving in Sipadan Island, a completely different adventure awaits extreme wall climbing enthusiasts at Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain between the New Guineas and the Himalayas.

Vertical camp

No one proclaims yet that Mount Kinabalu is among the world’s finest wall climbing destinations but looking at how these dare-devils conquer the mountain on its most treacherous route — what can be more treacherous than hanging from rocks or scaling the mountain walls at 90 degrees gradient — I couldn’t help but thinking that the mountain could be among the finest place for wall climbing.

Check out this amazing production, not to mention stunning photography, which documents of the whole Mount Kinbabalu wall climbing adventure.

[Photo credit: Borneo Dispatches]

Leaders of six countries — Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Timor Leste — are gathering in Manado, in Sulawesi, Indonesia in a bid to save the region’s coral.

Amazon of the Ocean... Graphic by WWF

Dubbed the Coral Triangle Initiative, the meeting seeks to arrest the degradation of the region’s corals and marine heritage, which are under threats from global warming and destructive fishing methods.

Borneo, in particular the waters off its eastern coast, is an integral part of the WWF-led Coral Triangle initiative that covers 5.7 million sq kilometre area dubbed the “Amazon of the Ocean”.

The coral triangle, which houses 76 per cent of the world’s coral species and 50 per cent of the world’s reef fish species, is WWF’s top priority in its marine conservation.

Three coral-rich waters in Sabah in the northern tip of Borneo, are among areas in the Coral Triangle.

They are the Tun Mustapha Marine Management Area in Marudu Bay, Turtle Islands Protected Area off Sandakan and Tun Sakaran Marine Park off Semporna which houses world premier diving site and New Seven Wonders of Nature nominee, Sipadan Island.

WWF says the Coral Triangle “holds the richest concentration of iridescent corals, fish, crustaceans, mollusks and marine plants in the world”.

“Labyrinths of limestone reefs, extensive sea grass meadows and coastal mangrove forests attract sea turtles and giants of the sea such as humpback whales to feed, breed and rest in the rich and sheltered waters.”

Sipadan has finally broken the Number 14 “psychological barrier”, the first time it does so since its nomination for the New Seven Wonders of Nature more than a couple of months ago. It reached Number 14 several weeks back but fell a rung to Number 15 soon after, before picking up speed and now it is in 13th position in the Island Category.

It needs to move up two more rungs to reach Number 11, the magic number that will qualify the island for the next round of voting. If votes are forthcoming, the island could reach Number 11 by the July 7 deadline.

Scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have discovered that a species of endemic Bornean frog, known scientifically as Huia cavitympanum (picture), found in Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, communicates using ultrasonic sound.

Huia cavitympanum... Photo by UCLA

This is the only known frog species which can communicate using purely ultrasonic calls, whose frequencies are too high to be heard by humans.

Read the report after the jump. ScienceDaily (May 9, 2009) — UCLA scientists report on the only known frog species that can communicate using purely ultrasonic calls, whose frequencies are too high to be heard by humans. Known as Huia cavitympanum, the frog lives only on the Southeast Asian island of Borneo.

Ultrasounds are high-pitched sounds more than 20 kilohertz (kHz) in frequency, which exceeds the upper limit of sounds detectable by humans and is far higher than the 5 to 8 kHz frequencies most amphibians, reptiles and birds are capable of hearing or producing. Key parts of the ear must be specially adapted to detect ultrasounds.

The frogs can hear sounds up to 38 kilohertz, the highest frequency any amphibian species has been known to hear, the scientists report. Humans can hear up to about 20 kHz and typically talk at 2 or 3 kHz.

While most of the more than 5,000 frog species worldwide have eardrums that are flat on the side of the head, Huia cavitympanum has eardrums recessed in the side of the skull, similar to mammals.

Peter Narins, UCLA distinguished professor of physiological science and of ecology and evolutionary biology, and Victoria Arch, a UCLA graduate student in ecology and evolutionary biology, spent several nights in the remote area where the frogs live.

“We had very little information suggesting that they would be in this location,” said Arch, lead author of the study. “We found them our first night out.”

Huia cavitympanum produces some audible calls and others that are entirely ultrasonic.

“You look at the frog and can see it is vocalizing — you can tell because their vocal pouches pulsate — but you don’t hear any sound. It’s amazing,” Arch said. “Then you look down at the recording equipment and see the lights flashing, indicating sound. I have never seen that before. In a frog, it’s unprecedented to have purely ultrasonic vocalizations.”

Narins and Arch have an idea about why the frogs, which live along a noisy stream, use both ultrasonic communication and calls that are audible to humans.

“Our hypothesis is that these frogs have shifted to use higher frequencies in their communication to avoid the interference of sound produced by rushing water in the lower-frequency range,” Arch said. “However, high-frequency sounds do not transmit as far. By producing some lower-frequency calls, they can transmit calls over a greater distance, so they can communicate with frogs that are farther away. But by also producing some calls that are high-frequency — all ultrasonic — they may be able to communicate better over that background noise.

“Producing both types of calls might be a bet-hedging strategy to be heard,” Arch said. “This is how males attract females, communicate with one another and establish territorial boundaries.”

The research may have implications for improving human hearing aids and addressing hearing loss. Most hearing aids, Narins said, simply amplify sound, including unnecessary background noise. Better hearing aids that are directional, for example, could result from the research.

In 1998, Kraig Adler, a professor of neurobiology and behavior who had been Narins’ professor at Cornell University, told Narins he should go to China to see “a frog with an ear canal like a human,” Narins recalled.

Narins took the advice. Along with colleagues, including Albert Feng from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he discovered a frog species that lives in rushing streams and waterfalls in east-central China called Odorrana tormota (formerly known as Amolops tormotus). Odorrana tormota, Narins found, could detect and produce ultrasounds due to the highly unusual presence of an ear canal. That research was published March 16, 2006, in the journal Nature.

The frogs in China produce very loud calls that are, at the same time, both audible and ultrasonic. In Borneo, however, Huia cavitympanum produces some sounds that are purely ultrasonic.

“That was unique — and the first time that has been found in any frog species,” said Narins, who has studied dozens of frog species. “We are reporting this for the first time.”

“With the Chinese frog species, every time you see the vocal sac pulsate, you will hear a sound,” Arch said. “With the Bornean frog, sometimes you will see it is calling and you don’t hear anything; it’s all outside of our hearing range.”

The frogs in China and Borneo’s Huia cavitympanum are the only two frog species known to have recessed ear drums, Narins said.

In China, the scientists had set up a loudspeaker in the frogs’ natural habitat near a river, then played frog calls and recorded the frogs’ vocal responses with a microphone and very high-frequency equipment.

Later, they learned of this second species in Borneo with similar ear morphology. Narins and Arch went to Borneo in 2007, and Arch went back last summer.

In Borneo, they lived in a camp with a roof and three walls, with one side open. They slept on a wood floor, protected by mosquito nets. Narins was bitten by leeches and woke up several mornings soaked in blood. They ate noodles and peanut butter.

“It was a huge adventure, and so exciting to study the animals in their habitat,” Arch said. “You feel like you’re eavesdropping on them.”

“There are not many places on the planet left that are so pristine and untouched by humans,” Narins said. “It’s exciting to go there and wonderful to have a sense of discovering something brand-new. We were there a week and saw only two other people.”

Arch and Narins studied male frogs. In the majority of frog species, the females do not vocalize, and when they do, they do so less frequently than males, Arch said.

The research was funded by the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration, the Paul S. Veneklasen Research Foundation, the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) of the National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation (through a doctoral dissertation improvement grant to Arch).

Co-authors are T. Ulmar Grafe, a faculty member in the biology department at Borneo’s University Brunei Darussalam, and Marcos Gridi-Papp, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar in Narins’ laboratory.

The sister-in-law of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, film-maker Clare Rewcastle, has been documenting the lives of the Penan people in the Malaysian Borneo state Sarawak.

Penan... AP Picture

Rewcastle, who is married to Andrew Brown, younger brother of Gordon, has been coming to Borneo since a couple of years ago and secretly filming companies destroying the rainforest fo make way for oil palm plantation.

Rewcastle said the Penan, the last nomadic tribe of Borneo, was desperate “to smuggle out news of their plight”.

“So in the end, they bundled us under some bin bags, secreted us upstream in the bottom of a shaky old longboat and then led us into the jungle to a hidden-away old hunting hut. It became our home for the next three days, during which time at least 50-60 men, women and children came to meet us, many arriving at night to avoid detection.”

Ten Dollar Malaya and British Borneo Note

I guess red has always been the colour of ten dollar notes.

[Source: Malaysia Paper Money and Banknotes]

Sipadan regained its 14th position in the race for the New Seven Wonders of Nature after slipping into 17th spot in the Islands Category.

Now that the island has regained its previous high, everyone who supports the island must now ensure it won’t slip lose anymore ground.

Sipadan needs to reach the 11th position to qualify for the next round of voting. Bocas del Toro, Ko Phi Phi Island and Maldives Archipelago remain the island’s stumbling block.

Representative of indigenous peoples from around the world, including from Borneo, have gathered in Alaska to discuss issues related to climate change.

I wish I was there and cover the proceedings live on Borneo Blog.

Patricia Cochran, chairwoman of the Indigenous Peoples’ Global Summit on Climate Change, one of the groups sponsoring the meeting said indigenous peoples, including representatives from Papua New Guinea, Borneo, Mexico, Kenya and Nepal would issue “recommendations for actions that we will take from here,” reports AFP.

Cochran described indigenous peoples as being “on the front lines of this global problem, at a time when their cultures and livelihoods in traditional lands are already threatened.”

AFP said the gathering in Anchorage is being held some 800km ast of the Alaskan village of Newtok, where intensifying river flow and melting permafrost have forced 320 residents to relocate to higher ground.

The New York Times has published a series of 10 pictures taken in Borneo by Swedish photographer and natural historian Mattias Klum. The series, titled “Borneo: A Biodiversity Managerie“, is accompanied by brief but informative write-ups about Borneo natural heritage.

Who would have thought that Borneo would have a role in the resignation of United States Department of Trade Commissioner Astrid Glynn [picture, left]

As strange as it may seems, the Borneo vacation seems to have precipitated her resignation from the post that pays her USD160,000 a year.

Glynn flew to Borneo on a three-week vacation in March as officials were rushing to get out USD$1.1 billion in stimulus money for road and bridge projects. Her absence made contractors “frustrated and nervous”, reports said.

Glynn has tendered her resignation, effective May 8, saying, she wants to spend time with her family in suburb Boston.

Daily News quoted her as saying that, “This is something I have been thinking about for some time. We are at the point in the cycle when it is time for me to move on.”