1. What do you study related to biodiversity (what are your research questions, what organisms do you work on)?
|
|
 My main focus involves the herpetofauna of Borneo, particularly snakes and crocodilians. Most recently I have been working with the Tomistoma Task Force of the IUCN/SSC Crocodile Specialist Group on the conservation of the Critically Endangered "False" Gharial, Tomistoma schlegelii. Dr. R.F. Inger, Tan Fui Lian (both of FMNH) & I have produced two field guides for Borneo, one on frogs and the other on snakes. I have also done a fair amount of herpetofaunal inventory work for Environmental Assessments or National Parks in Malaysia and Indonesia.
|
2. How do you study biodiversity (for example, what technological tools and methodologies do you use in your research)?
|
|
We have used GPS (Geographical Positioning System) units in the field for the past 5-7 years. Most recently, I have been working with Dr. Harold Voris of FMNH and Mark Bezuijen, the CGS-TTF Coordinator in Australia on the original versus the current geographical distribution of the Tomistoma, and how this relates to landscape and habitat features, using arcview and other GIS related software. In previous years, I used PIT tags to investigate a population of sea kraits (Laticauda colubrina) near Sabah, Malaysia.
|
3. Where do you study biodiversity?
|
|
All my work since about 1982 has been done in Malaysian and Indonesian Borneo.
|
4. How might your research have implications for biological conservation?
|
|
The inventories we've done since the early 1980s have served as baseline data for conservation monitoring. We (Dr. R.F. Inger and myself) have also described at least half a dozen new species of amphibians and reptiles from Borneo.
|
5. How did you become interested in science? What made you want to be a scientist, and how did you get to The Field Museum?
|
|
 I was always interested in animals, but was inspired further by a biology teacher who took students on field trips to have a firsthand look at snakes, frogs, etc. After working in Peninsular Malaysia for about ten years, I took a teaching post as the only vertebrate biologist at a small campus of the National University in Sabah (formerly North Borneo). In the mid 1980s, the Sabah State Parks office wanted us to survey amphibians, as well as study sea kraits near a popular island Park. I requested advice from Dr. R.F. Inger & Dr. H.K. Voris, who have been my advisors, field mentors and friends ever since (in some well known sites such as Pulau Tiga of "Survivor" fame, Kinabalu Park, and Danum Valley).
|
6. Describe important collaborations for your scientific endeavors (describe your work with other researchers, organizations, or scientific groups, local or indigenous peoples, etc.)
|
|
Many of my students, especially from the University Kebangsaan in Sabah, are still involved in biology either as government employees in local Wildlife Departments or as university lecturers in Malaysia. During those years in Malaysia, I was a member of the Malayan (now Malaysian) Nature Society from 1978, then a founder of the Sabah Branch & its Chairperson from 1987-1993. Our inventories in Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan have always included local people: Kadazan-Dusun in Sabah, Iban and Malay in Sarawak, and Dayak Bekumpai, Kenyah Badeng and Kenyah Lepo' Maut in Central and Eastern Kalimantan. Dr. Inger & I have many old friends from our days of making research collections in the 1980s.
I have been involved with the IUCN/SSC Crocodile Specialist Group since 1991 as a result of about five years work on Crocodylus porosus in Sabah during the late 1980s. More recently, I joined with Dr. Inger in an IUCN workshop on determining the conservation status of SE Asian amphibians in Bangkok.
One of my "hobbies" for many years was wildlife sound recording, culminating in a CD entitled "Voices of the Borneo Rainforest". Its insect background was recently incorporated into the soundtrack of an I-MAX film about insects, "3-D Bugs" (or a similar title).
|
