swiftlet

Budget Single Story Bird House　[Logie Seman]

Posted on 2014/12/04 by nakane

Budget Single Story Bird House Logie Seman (Ex-Assistant Forest Officer, Forest Department Sarawak) Introduction 　A study was conducted of bird houses that are used to lure the swiftlet ‘burung walet’. The purpose of the study was to design a practical and innovative bird house that would provide better opportunities for rural or middle class people to participate in swiftlet farming and the sale of white edible bird’s nests, which is considered a lucrative industry. 　In Sarawak, wealthy people or companies initiated the construction of large bird houses, three to four stories high, which might cost between RM 300,000 to RM 400,000. An alternative is to build a single story bird […]

Recent Change of Edible Bird’s Nest Trade in Sarawak:
The Introduction of New Method and Sustainable Collection [Tetsu Ichikawa]

Posted on 2014/12/02 by nakane

Recent Change of Edible Bird’s Nest Trade in Sarawak: The Introduction of New Method and Sustainable Collection Tetsu Ichikawa (Department of Tourism, Rikkyo University) Introduction 　The purpose of this paper is to report and analyze on the transformation process of the edible bird’s nest trade in Sarawak, Malaysia. Recently the edible bird’s nest trade has been booming in Malaysia (e.g. Lim & Earl of Cranbrook 2002, Voon 2012, Chew 2013). This influx in trade is influenced by factors including: the Chinese food culture, the Chinese perception of health, the ecological knowledge of local people, and the multi-ethnic network in this area. These characteristics are significant in the trade of edible […]

The Key to the Bird Nest Business Lies in Bird House　[Haruka Suzuki]

Posted on 2014/06/02 by nakane

The Key to the Bird Nest Business Lies in Bird House Haruka Suzuki（Center for On-site Education and Research, Integrated Area Studies Unit, Center for the Promotion of Interdisciplinary Education and Research, Kyoto University） The key to the bird nest business lies in houses 　The bird nest business is flourishing in urban areas along the Sarawak coast. Success in this business, which involves gathering the nests of cave swiftlets, a type of swiftlet, for sale (see Photograph 1), depends on being able to gather as many large nests as possible. To that end, people build structures that provide an environment that facilitates nest-building by the birds. Throughout this paper, I will […]

Bird Surveys in Tropical Plantations　[Motoko Fujita]

Posted on 2014/06/02 by nakane

Bird Surveys in Tropical Plantations Motoko Fujita（Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University）　I started researches on birds in plantations in Indonesia in 2007. The main focus was on the avian diversity in acacia plantations of Company M in Palembang with which RISH (Research Institute for Sustainable Humanosphere, Kyoto University) had just started a joint study on acacia. The goal of my research was conservation of the biodiversity by management, as the decrease in biodiversity is a hot issue. Until then, I had been conducting fieldwork only in Japan and this was my first time to do research in Indonesia. I landed at Jakarta airport with a mix of 70% […]

The Edible Birds’ Nest Commodity Chain between Sarawak and East Asia　[Daniel Chew]

Posted on 2014/02/10 by nakane

The Edible Birds’ Nest Commodity Chain between Sarawak and East Asia Daniel Chew (University of Malaysia Sarawak) 　Edible birds’ nest, which are moulded from the saliva of the aerodramus swiflets, forming white and black nests, are a highly prized culinary food product reputed to have health benefits. The uniqueness of the appeal of the nests is its association with the dynastic past of China as a special food for rulers and the wealthy, an appeal which carries on to this day as an expensive and prestigious food product for the ethnic Chinese wherever they live. The nests are collected from cliffs in caves and man made structures in maritime and […]