Meet the wildlife of Sabah’s regenerating wilderness

The first thing that strikes me when I arrive at Kem Maris is the quiet.

The field camp features guest accommodations — two airy wooden dorms that are partially open to the surrounding lush green hills — and is situated deep within the Luasong forest in southeastern Sabah, approximately a two-hour drive from the town of Tawau. A place almost primeval at night, and yet, the result of a long, patient restoration effort that began back in 1988.

That was when the Yayasan Sabah Group and Sow-A-Seed Foundation, established by the popular Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, jointly funded the restoration efforts of this Bornean rainforest locally known as INIKEA — from Innoprise-IKEA. The project successfully rehabilitated a staggering 14,000ha of the Kalabakan Forest Reserve in Luasong after it was decimated by drought and wildfires between 1982 and 1983.

Restoration was carried out in various ways, depending on the level of damage: from assisted natural regeneration to the planting of a diverse range of native tree species, aimed at mimicking the original forest’s structure and biodiversity. INIKEA is one of Malaysia’s longest-running reforestation projects, and it’s now opening its doors to something different.

“I love this place, love the quiet here, and especially, the wildlife you can see,” says Shavez Cheema, the strapping 30-something leading conservationist and trip organiser of Kota Kinabalu and Tawau-based conservation group 1StopBorneo Wildlife (1stopborneoguide.com). Cheema, who has spent over a decade developing programs that fund conservation activities through tourism, is onto something essentially simple. Yet, few have considered before now: using forest reserves as safari grounds.

Unlike Africa, wildlife in Borneo is much smaller, more elusive and constantly dwells high up in the forest canopies. Not only does one need an eagle eye to find them, but one must go to the right places where animals hide away from encroaching human settlements. INIKEA is one of those. The success of the restoration is evident in the return of a wide range of wildlife, including orangutans, elephants, hornbills, and all five wildcat species found in Sabah.

Visitors can finally experience this quiet success story the way biologists always have: by venturing into the restored forest at night, when the wildlife emerges from the shadows and onto the logging roads that cut across the reserve. These are no longer roads for commercial extraction — they are corridors of returning life.

From Kem Maris’ comfortable dorms, we set out just after sunset in an open-back jeep, driving west along the park’s old logging track. The headlights punch white holes into the darkness, and beyond it, the forest swallows everything into a thick, black void.

The first creature to greet us is a slow loris, high up in the branches. Its eyes catch the light like two embers. For a moment, it freezes, watching down at us intruders, before it shuffles deeper into the foliage with the deliberate slowness that gives it its name.

Within five minutes, movement flickers at the edge of the road. A Malay civet — the first of four we will eventually see tonight — trots confidently along the gravel shoulder, short but dense fur marked with crisp black blotches. She is not afraid of our jeep — pauses, looks back over her shoulder, and continues walking with a kind of relaxed ownership until she jumps into the foliage and disappears.

As we continue, another civet darts across the road. Then another appears farther down, sniffing at the verge. The fourth lingers in the open just long enough for us to watch her lift her nose to the wind, testing the scents drifting through the trees. The night isn’t done surprising us. A porcupine waddles out of the undergrowth, quills bristling under the beams. It pauses, considers us, and then crosses the road with surprising haste, disappearing into the darkness on the other side.

By the time we return to Kem Maris, it’s almost midnight, and I realise that what began in 1988 as a technical, long-term reforestation plan is now becoming some place where wildlife has returned enough to meet us on the road. Come and greet them, too.