Beyond the textbook: learning in Borneo's rainforests
In this guest blog, undergraduate student Bethan Sheldon reflects on her two-week field course in the Danum Valley, Malaysian Borneo, and how immersive fieldwork deepened her understanding of rainforest ecology, biodiversity, and conservation.
Waking up on our first morning in the Danum Valley, we saw a young orangutan high in the canopy above the road as we wandered to the rest house for breakfast. Still exhausted after two days of travelling and adjusting to the intense heat and humidity, it was incredible to see such a charismatic animal so early on. In that moment, it truly hit that we had made it to a rare area of pristine forest in Borneo, one of Earth’s most diverse regions.
As the jetlag abated, we settled into an early schedule. We frequently rose to watch the sunrise across the river in the hope of seeing otters and hearing the famed rainforest dawn chorus. Most mornings, after fuelling up on bananas and putting on the all-important leech socks, we would head into the forest where a two-kilometre walk could easily be a three-hour excursion with each new species bringing wonder. We focussed on butterflies (cue students frolicking across clearings with butterfly nets), trees, birds, bats and frogs. Our evenings were filled with night walks, night drives and even the occasional lecture in a blissfully air-conditioned room.
As my understanding and awareness of the forest increased, the more life we saw, and time seemed to stand still, enabling me to appreciate the immense biodiversity surrounding us. I loved seeing flying lemurs and even an elusive leopard cat a during night drive. I was less enamoured with the sea of green spiders' eyes that met each torch beam as we flashed them across forest floor and canopy high above. That was certainly a case where ignorance of their abundance had been bliss! Another highlight was our morning of (scheduled) birdwatching while drinking coffee from the peace of the rest house, and hearing of other students’ sightings of a reticulated python and king cobra on their forest forays.
Halfway through the trip, we left the field station in a convoy of 4x4s to explore the threats facing tropical rainforests. From logged forests to seedling nurseries and regenerating landscapes, these sites appeared healthy at first glance, but on closer inspection they contrasted starkly with the vibrant complexity and clamour of Danum. We then headed to a canopy walkway to see the forest from above, noting particularly the masses of flowering trees, a poorly studied phenomenon that occurs about every seven years and coincided with our visit! After a tasty meal at the impressive Borneo Rainforest Lodge, we headed to a local hilltop to survey the surrounding forest which felt expansive and deceptively sheltered from the threats we’d considered across the day.
In our second week, we had the chance to conduct projects across the forest. While I had intended to focus on trees, I was blown away by the immense size, stunning colours and diversity of moths and butterflies so decided to investigate their distribution near rivers. I was fortunate to work with Stella and Shah, two students at University Malaysia Sabah who joined us at Danum. They were experienced in fieldwork and brought immense knowledge and enthusiasm to the project. While macaques consistently stole bait from our butterfly traps and deer caused their fair share of disruption, I appreciated the independence we were granted to design our studies and collect data. Our forest ventures were accompanied by a ranger, Lewis, who removed hornets from our traps, entertained us with stories of expeditions with Danum’s other visitors and enthusiastically led the group in karaoke on the final evening.
Offline evenings of music formed a key part of my experience at Danum, with a friend boldly transporting a guitar halfway across the world to the field centre. With most students able to play a little and teach melodies to others, it brought people together as we talked, read and played cards across the field centre. After the intensity of exams, I found it freeing to be able to exist in such a stunning, peaceful and diverse setting without the distraction of phones and pressures of university life.
Returning to Oxford, the isolation of Danum feels like a world away and I miss the slowing of time to appreciate red leaf monkeys swinging in the canopy at dawn, the clocklike wail of cicadas announcing dusk’s approach and unknown stars of the Southern Hemisphere parading across the sky on clear nights. It was overall an incredible two weeks that will certainly linger in my memory as I consider future paths and further study that may lead back to Borneo.
To help future students learn through experiences like this, please consider supporting our fieldwork activities here: Biology - Travel Fund
