Borneo Project.Three years in the making, the second community-managed microhydro project on Malaysian Borneo is now up and running! In exchange for a formal commitment to protect upstream rainforests in the buffer zone buffer zonen. A neutral area between hostile or belligerent forces that serves to prevent conflict. Noun 1. buffer zone of Crocker Range National Park Crocker Range Park was established in 1984, although the area had previously been under protection as a forest reserve. It covers the north-south Crocker Range, of 1200-1800 meter mountains in Sabah, east Malaysia on the island of Borneo, which separate the western coastal plain of Sabah, the indigenous Dusun community of Terian received funding for a state-of-the-art microhydro turbine with a grant from the Seacology Foundation. The Borneo Project, Green Empowerment, and Partners of Community Organizations (PACOS) of Sabah provided technical training and troubleshooting for appropriate technology selection, system design, and installation. Teams of youths from Raleigh International Raleigh International is a UK-based youth development organisation that aims to help people of all backgrounds and nationalities to discover their full potential. This is primarily done through a 3 month expedition to a foreign country, with past countries including Chile, UK, a British nonprofit working with disadvantaged and at-risk youth, provided additional volunteer labor. Borneo Project volunteers spent several weeks with community "collective work parties" to install the piping system, water catchment catch·ment n. 1. A catching or collecting of water, especially rainwater. 2. a. A structure, such as a basin or reservoir, used for collecting or draining water. b. tank, powerhouse, turbine, and wiring systems. Adrian Lasimbang, a coordinator for PACOS who was awarded the Seacology Conservation Prize of 2004 for his work with Terian, was thrilled with the final results. "The water comes out of this system as clean as it went in. By eliminating the use of fossil fuels fossil fuel: see energy, sources of; fuel. fossil fuel Any of a class of materials of biologic origin occurring within the Earth's crust that can be used as a source of energy. Fossil fuels include coal, petroleum, and natural gas. , we are preventing pollution of their pristine streams, river, and air. The forests in the watershed are now officially protected. Native fruit and timber trees TIMBER TREES. According to Blackstone, oak, ash, elm, and such other trees as are commonly used for building, are considered timber. 2 Comm. 28. But it has been contended, arguendo, that to make it timber, the trees must be felled and severed from the stock. 6 Mod. 23 Stark on Slander, 79. are being planted on slopes formerly used for rice farming." The small, quiet turbine now provides six kilowatts of clean electricity to light 50 houses and power school computers, a rice mill, and communal refrigerators for forest produce. Petroleum-powered generators and fuel, which once had to be backpacked in on grueling eight-hour hikes through the mountains, are now obsolete. The community has lived in this roadless watershed for over 100 years, combining subsistence rice farming with generations of indigenous knowledge in natural resource management. Members hunt, fish, and gather dozens of species of plants for food, medicines, building materials Building materials used in the construction industry to create . These categories of materials and products are used by and construction project managers to specify the materials and methods used for . , musical instruments, and traditional crafts. All are gathered using traditional protocols of sustainable use Sustainable use is the use of resources at a rate which will meet the needs of the present without impairing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The concept was notably put forth by the Brundtland Commission in 1987. See also
Common ownership is one form of customary land ownership. rights, so they may continue to live as they wish, on the lands of their ancestots. The Terian project is now the second successful microhydro initiative on Borneo. The first, at Long Lawen, Sarawak, dramatically reduced erosion in its industrially logged watershed. The Kenyah longhouse longhouse Traditional communal dwelling of the Iroquois Indians until the 19th century. The longhouse was a rectangular box built out of poles, with doors at each end and saplings stretched over the top to form the roof, the whole structure being covered with bark. community had been previously evicted from its lands to make way for the Bakun megadam. After forced relocation to a central refugee camp with miserable conditions, the community fled home to find its lands being industrially logged. With help from Sahabat Alam Malaysia, the Borneo Project, Green Empowerment, and PACOS, they organized to install a microhydro system and brokered an agreement to stop logging and road-building upstream from the turbine. After three years of forest restoration to the degraded area, erosion stopped. The dramatic reduction in siltation of the watershed attracted the attention and praise of local government. In a reversal of past hostilities, Long Lawen's people were awarded the right to stay on their lands, regardless of their violation of the eviction orders. Their microhydro system, still running smoothly in its fourth year, is inspiring other indigenous communities across Borneo struggling to stay on ancestral lands. PACOS has now launched a third project in southern Sabah, which will be completed in May 2006. |
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