Maktab Duli Goes Green

Young members of Maktab Duli Pengiran Muda Al-Muhtadee Billah's Environmentally Friendly Club collecting waste recycled as part of their energy conservation project.

FROM recyclables to reusables.

This was the mission of 30 students from Maktab Duli Pengiran Muda Al-Muhtadee Billah (Maktab Duli) in Gadong as they collected recyclable materials and waste in their school compound over the past week to be recycled by a local company, Daijo recycling.

The 30 students are part of the 70 active members of the colleges' Environmentally Friendly Club (EFC).

The club supervisor, Dk Jaliha Pg Sahbudin, said the proceeds of the sale of the recycled waste would then be used to produce reusable bags bearing the college's logo as well as friendly message on encouraging shoppers to use reusable bags as their next project.

Use of reusable bags is being encouraged in the Sultanate after it marked its first No Plastic Day on May 3.

"These bags will be sold to the students and teachers in the college and they can use them to replace the plastic bags when they go shopping in supermarkets, thus helping the environment by reducing the number of plastic waste," said the club supervisor.

Dk Jaliha said the activities conducted yesterday were to encourage the young club members to inculcate a habit of conserving energy that they can practise in their daily lives, thus saving the environment from further destruction, and in the end, lead by example for the rest of the community in the country.

"Aside from doing our part in conserving the environment, we want to convey our beliefs and concerns to the public by starting with the students in the college, and then on to the students' parents and siblings who will later on pass the awareness to their friends, colleagues at work and neighbours, as a way to get our message across," she said.

"Through recycling, we are significantly cutting down the consumption of energy that would've been used to produce new materials, and at the same time slow down the process of depletion of resources," she added.

Aside from collecting recyclables, the students also did their part in conserving energy and protecting the environment by recycling wastes and planting crops organically in their campus.

Crops were planted near the school's old female hostel. The crops which consisted of various types of vegetables such as watercress and long beans were planted organically as Dk Jaliha said the benefits of organically-grown vegetables were far greater than the conventionally-grown due to the absence of various poisons such as pesticides.

"It's good to grow your own crops because you are assured that you've grown them organically and can always guarantee that your food is safer and healthier. Additionally, you can also control the amount of vegetables you use for your cooking, thus preventing food waste," said Dk Jaliha.

"Furthermore, you save energy (fuel) from travelling to buy vegetables from the market, and growing vegetables using organic fertilisers will not deteriorate the soil. Finally, gardening is good for your health, especially if you want to keep in shape," she added.

Dk Jaliha went on to say that planting fruits and vegetables organically at home may be slightly less cheaper than buying them from the supermarkets, but the environmental and health costs from the conventionally-grown crops far exceeds the organically-grown ones in the long term.

Asra Nursyakillah Rabaha, president of the club said that the project was a tremendous success for the club this year and is planning to make it an ongoing activity in the college.

"The response have been very positive. We've had non-member students contributing recyclable wastes to us as a sign of support for our drive towards helping the environment.We also have parents of students who came over today to deliver their recyclable wastes," she told The Brunei Times.

The 19-year-old said that that the experience gained from conducting the various projects and activities have been highly beneficial and educational for the group, while having tremendous fun engaging them.

Since its formation in 2008, the club has been involved in running several projects on environment conservation, including recycling campaigns, energy conservation and alternative packaging.

Last year, the club made headlines by contributing $890 to Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam (BIBD) in support of the tree planting project to restore the trees in Badas Forest Reserve which were lost to forest fires.

Expert hails HoB lead to curb degradation

BRUNEI'S Heart of Borneo (HoB) initiative have spared lowland trees from further degradation which has already occurred in some parts of Borneo due to climate change caused by years of human activities.

This was indicated in a research by Ferry Slik, Associate Professor at the Key Lab in Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardens (XTBG), Chinese Academy of Science (CAS), Yunnan, China which he represented during the second day of the Asem (Asia Europe Meeting) Workshop 2010 held at Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), yesterday.

During the session, which primarily discussed on Biodiversity, Forest Ecosystem and Functions, Slik presented his research on Borneo-wide modelling of tree diversity, composition and biomass and their indication on possible climate change which impacts on tropical forests.

"We still have limited knowledge of how global climate change may affect tropical forests around the world, even though this information is crucial for designing conservation strategies that can counter some of its possibly negative impacts."

Slik's research is focused on tree species diversity and distribution patterns in relation to environmental variables in lowland rain forests of Borneo and Southeast Asia.

This includes investigating the amount of forest structural damage caused by drought, fire and logging and their effects on tree species diversity and composition, as well as species-habitat associations in old growth forests.

Slik has build up a large database of plant morphological traits, which in combination with a GIS environmental and tree species inventory database can be used to study floristic, diversity and plant functional traits in relation to the environment.

"One way of predicting possible impacts of future climate change on tropical forest biomass, tree diversity and composition is by determining the influence of current climate gradients on these forest properties."

He said that once these relationships are known they can be superimposed on maps containing modelled future climate scenarios to determine if and how forest biomass, tree diversity and composition will change in a spatial context. This in turn can be used for better spatial planning of conservation efforts for tropical forests.

In his study, Slik and his team used a large data of old-growth forest tree inventories from across Borneo and related their biomass, tree diversity and composition to eleven environmental variables including several climate related ones such as annual rainfall, rainfall seasonability, temperature seasonability, temperature annual range, drought stress and elevation (which is a proxy for yearly average temperature).

During his presentation, Slik related his findings to expected climate change models for Southeast Asia.

"Our results show that forest biomass, tree diversity and composition are all significantly but differentially correlated with climate variables. This means that future climate change will affect these forest properties in sometimes contrasting ways."

"It is likely that tropical forests will show changes in structure, composition and diversity over the next 100 years that are related to changing atmospheric conditions."

Tropical forests in Borneo are likely to show changes in structure, composition and diversity related to changing atmospheric conditions.

He went on to say that it is also likely that these changes will differ considerably between the main tropical forest regions due to regional differences in climate change.

"Models for Borneo seem to indicate increasing tree alpha-diversity due to increasing temperature, considerable shifts in tree species distribution due to changing temperature (elevational shifts) and changes in temperature and rainfall seasonality, and increasing biomass due to increasing rainfall."

"So the main question is not 'will tropical forests change due to climate change', but 'can tropical forest adapt to climate change given the time scale involved, existing land use patterns, forest fragmentation levels and tree dispersal capabilities?"'

Brunei is among the remaining countries that still has a lot of lowland forests, which is reasonably good. However, Brunei is surrounded by Malaysia where a lot of forest degradation and fragmentation has already happened, so if species need to migrate, they probably need to migrate to higher elevations.

"If the area surrounding Brunei is deforested, that's going to be a major problem for the species because there is nowhere for them to move."

"I think it's good that Brunei is in the Heart of Borneo initiative because Brunei has rich lowland forests still untouched.

"The most diverse and interesting but also threatened forests are the lowland forest, which is mostly outside the Heart of Borneo. At least some part of lowland forests get preserved."

Slik who obtained his PhD at the National Herbarium of the Netherlands, Leiden University, The Netherlands. is interested in theoretical and statistical problems with current diversity and ordination methods. He is also into new species identification techniques, such as DNA-barcoding and next-gen sequencing.

"I hope to expand my studies to include the whole of Southeast Asia, up to the most northern limits of naturally occurring Dipterocarp forests," he told The Brunei Times.

UBD students, staff told: Go 'green', cycle to work

STUDENTS, faculty and staff of the Universiti Brunei Darussalam are encouraged to cycle "more frequently, and to drive less frequently" as the construction of bicycle parks around the campus are now under way, a university official said yesterday.

The bicycle project is part of the UBD Green Project, which is a long-term initiative to the greening of the campus and to help educate the UBD community about environment sustainability and its challenges, said Assistant Vice-Chancellor Dr Hj Junaidi Hj Abd Rahman.

The Banks of Islam Brunei Darussalam (BIBD) yesterday contributed $19,677 to fund the building of bicycle parks which will be carried out in two phases.

The bank's contribution was in support of the UBD's Green Project initiatives launched in October 19, and BIBD officially became the principal partner for UBD's Convo Festival this year.

BIBD's head of product Management and Marketing Solutions Dona Eldayana Johan handed the mock cheque for the contribution to the Vice-Chancellor.

The first phase of the construction of the bicycle park is now under way in four areas around the campus namely. the Student Affairs Section , Educational Technological Centre , Male Residential College , and the Central Lecture Theatre. This phase cost a total of $4,341.

Phase two of the project, which will cost $11, 736, will be carried out in other areas within the campus such as the Chancellor Hall, Institute for Leadership, Innovation and Advancement , Female Residential College , Administration building, Faculty of Business, Economics and Policy Studies , Faculty of Science, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences , Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Institute of Education , Sports Complex and UBD Mosque.

"It is hoped that the construction of the bicycle parks around the UBD campus will encourage students and staff to cycle more frequently, and to drive less frequently, to the university, thus reducing energy emission," said assistant vice-chancellor.

"Since the establishment of UBD, there have been various initiatives involved in the 'Greening' of the UBD Campus. However, the focus is now on enhancing awareness of the current environmental challenges," he added.

"Cycling is fun, economical, environmentally-friendly and a healthy way to travel. BIBD therefore applauds this initiative," said Dona Eldeyana.

"We at BIBD feel that it is necessary for all university campuses, especially one as big as UBD's to have parking spots for bicycles stationed throughout the campus. With this, we encourage not just the students but also the lecturers and staff of UBD to opt for this healthier travel option and to make full use of these bicycle stands/racks, and the bicycles which UBD will soon provide," she said.

"Hopefully in the very near future, we will have students and staff cycling to the university."

In line with the objective, UBD will be carrying out a campaign called, "Its Fun To Use Bicycle" from October 26 to November 7, to encourage students to promote the idea of cycling around the campus as a healthy and environmentally-friendly lifestyle.

In addition to the contribution, BIBD will also be sponsoring the prizes for UBD's Amazing Race 2009, which will be held on October 28. Having a similar concept of the popular TV show "The Amazing Race", the activity is one of the students' initiatives as part of UBD's Convocation Festival activities.

UBD's version of "Amazing Race" will evolve aroung the "Green Concept". There will be 11 checkpoints situated around UBD campus and at each checkpoint, contestants will be faced by a myriad of tasks ranging from cycling to searching for fauna. There will be 28 participating teams with each team consisting of four members. The Champions for UBD's Amazing Race 2009 will each receive $500 while the four first runners up will each receive $300 and the four second runners up will each receive $100.

Clearing Off Cigarette Butts From The Streets

It's the 1st of June already. As imposed by the Ministry of Health, we are now prohibited to smoke in all public places. Every premises will be banned from smokers, especially restaurants and cafes, where smokers have been proned to hang out there. We can't even smoke in our own cars now. So where does that leave us? Well, in the privacy of our own home, of course.

It's really a surprising move by the authorities, but I wanna look at it at the positive side. This might be an opportunity for me to reduce the number of cigarette consumption as I tend to smoke whenever everyone else around me smokes. Yes I'm a smoker, but that doesn't mean that I wanna stay a smoker for the rest of my life. I am fully aware of the dangers of it in the long run. If this move is effective enough to encourage me to full abstinence, I'd be happy to accept that.

In addition, this move is a great step in reducing, if not eliminating, the number of child and teenage smokers below 18. Patrons will now be asked for identification cards from the attendants on the counter should they wish to purchase a pack of cigarettes. By barricading access to young smokers to purchase cigarettes with their pocket money, this will encourage the youngsters to realize that they're not legal to smoke at their age.

On the downside, its really tough for every smokers to swallow, and most restaurant and cafe owners will feel the pinch because smokers bring money to them.

Let's face it. At least I get better ventilation indoors from now on.