Report on the Preliminary Research in Sarawak, Malaysia [Motoko Fujita]

Report on the Preliminary Research in Sarawak, Malaysia Motoko Fujita(CSEAS, Kyoto University)  Among the information I collected during this field trip, I discovered two facts about swiftlets that were particularly fascinating. One concerns the ecology of the bird and the other concerns human interaction with swiftlets that I witnessed during my stay. Two species of swiftlet produce edible birds’ nests, which is known as Chinese delicacy: the Edible-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus hereinafter referred as to A.fuciphagus) and the Black-nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus maximus, hereinafter referred as to A.maximus)In general, A.fuciphagus lives close to coastlines and dwells in bird farm houses*, in which people try to attract birds to make nests. A.maximus […]

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Feedback on Preliminary Research in Sarawak, Malaysia [Yucho Sadamichi]

Feedback on Preliminary Research in Sarawak, Malaysia Yucho Sadamichi (The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)  I have been working on environmental assessment, called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and in particular on the analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions resulting from the use of biofuels. LCA is based on a cradle-to-grave approach, covering land preparation, cultivation, transportation, biomass-to-energy conversion, distribution and consumption in the case of biofuels.  In the past couple of years, I have visited factories and plantations in Southeast Asia to conduct LCA analyses for enterprises and governments, mainly focusing on how to reduce GHG emissions induced by their activities. This year I joined this […]

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Characteristics of our research region

Characteristics of our research region  For our project we selected areas along the Kemena and Tatau rivers in the Bintulu district of Sarawak, Malaysia.  In these areas, we can observe natural forests, logged forests, secondary forests, shifting cultivation fields, and pepper fields all of which are common in many regions of Sarawak. But our research regions have, in addition to that, large-scale oil palm plantations and planted forests of acacia. Today, oil palm is largely cultivated among the small farmers in this area.  This region provides a wide variety of vegetation on a watershed scale and it is truly remarkable from the aspect of landscape ecology. This region’s heterogeneous landscape […]

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