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MESCOT
Model for Environmentally Sustainable Community Tourism
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MESCOT is a community-based conservation and ecotourism initiative established in 1997 in the Lower Kinabatangan River region of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. This region and its lowland rainforests are recognized as critical for conservation of biodiversity in Sabah. Sadly, due to over-logging, land conversion to palm oil, deforestation and forest fires, this area has been severely degraded and fragmented and the wildlife is in danger.
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MESCOT
Forest Restoration Project
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MESCOT’s Forest Restoration Project aims to restore degraded and fragmented habitat areas of the Supu Forest Reserve, part of an important forested corridor along the Lower Kinabatangan River that has been heavily impacted by fires and uncontrolled logging in recent decades. This protected reserve surrounds the four villages of the Batu Puteh community, and supports numerous rare and threatened bird and mammal species, including the endangered orang-utan.
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MESCOT
Tungog Lake Restoration
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MESCOT’s Tungog Lake Restoration Project is a resounding success story for the Batu Puteh community. Completely disconnected from the Kinabatangan River, the Tungog lake is one of only three deep clear-water oxbow lakes within this floodplain, and is a natural sanctuary for more than 180 native freshwater fishes. The 18-hectare (45-acre) lake and surrounding forest also holds economic and cultural significance for the local indigenous people.
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MESCOT
Tungog Rainforest
Eco-Camp
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MESCOT’s Tungog Rainforest Eco-Camp (TREC) is an innovative community-based ecotourism project aiming to provide ecologically sustainable lodging within the Tungog Lake rainforest. Whereas most nature tourism activities in Sabah fail to consider the customs and welfare of local indigenous communities, TREC seeks to create a new, sustainable model of ecotourism that will: produce local jobs and generate income for the community; minimize disturbance of the forest; and provide long-term funding for habitat restoration.
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Project Women Empowerment Trees (PWET)
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Project Women Empowerment Trees focuses on capacity building, skills training and community tree planting as means to empower local women and promote sustainable and economic use of their impoverished land. PWET aims to provide increased options, opportunities, and skills for the Pitas women by increasing access to livelihoods and enriching the local environment through habitat restoration.
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Kinabatangan Orang Utan Conservation Project (KOCP)
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Over the past ten years, the “Kinabatangan OrangUtan Conservation Project” (KOCP), a joint collaboration between the French NGO Hutan and the Sabah Wildlife Department, has embarked in the crucial challenge of securing the long-term survival of wild orang utans in the state of Sabah (Malaysian Borneo).
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This 3-year project initiated and facilitated by LEAP has trained Malaysian scientists from three institutions in the patented technology of sustainable gaharu/agarwood cultivation. Gaharu is a resinous substance produced as a defense to a fungal attack in Aquilaria trees, and fetches a high price as incense or oil. Exorbitant prices in the black market to supply this substance to feed an insatiable demand have caused the tree to become almost extinct in the wild.
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Borneo
Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC)
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The Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre is a joint project between Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD), Sabah Forestry Department (SFD) and LEAP to establish a sanctuary for captive sun bears, currently held in SWD facilities adjacent to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre, at Sepilok, near Sandakan.
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Borneo Rhino Alliance (BORA)
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BORA is a local NGO based in Sabah. Active since the year 2000, and formerly known as SOS Rhino and subsequently SOS Rhino Borneo, BORA provides protection and monitoring of a critical population of Sumatran Rhinos in Tabin Wildlife Reserve in eastern Sabah. LEAP’s main contribution is to bridge new funding sources and build a local Sabahan/Malaysian base of funding partners.
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Deramakot Forest Reserve Carbon Project
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In Deramakot (55,000 ha), Borneo’s and the world’s first FSC-certified tropical rainforest reserve, the concept is to marry sustainable forest management and carbon sequestration through C-RIL (Carbon Reduced Impact Logging) and hopefully present to the tropical rainforest community that sustainable forest management (according to FSC standards) can raise carbon financing through increased silviculture. The findings in Deramakot have been that sustainable forest management through RIL can support a viable orang utan population (600 animals). With a pilot C-RIL project, the goal is to promote the financial viability of RIL as a model for all commercial forest reserves in Sabah, where the majority of wild orang utans are found. LEAP is now in engagement with both local and international organizations in government, NGO and private sector to develop this project through the next phase of groundwork PIN (Project Idea Note) and PDD (Project Design Document) to establish viability.
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