Ecoleadership program was organized by Ecowarrior, Ecoteer, and MyCat at Merapoh on October 29 to November 1, 2015 involved 28 participants. The objective of the program is to broaden the ecological senses for nurturing the ecological attitudes and responsibilities. Regarded to all the challenges we experienced, I highly respect the determination of the participants.


Meeting point at Gombak LRT station.

The first activity was welcomed by good rain that continued during the next 24 hours. It made the forest wet and the trail became slippery. There was one creature very friendly to us. Leech, yes, the leeches!.

The first day activities were: observation on the wild life marks and human disturbances in the forest which include demonstration on how to install the camera to track the presence of wild life and the poachers; cooking the dishes in bamboo; exchange the experiences and ideas.

The next day before leaving the forest, some information on the forest structure and composition was delivered and followed by seed collections and botanical observations along the way back.


The first activity was cheered by rain.


Although it was wet, we were eager to see the forest!


One of numerous friendly leeches waves along the trail (photo was taken from internet).


It is a logged over forest and surviving to recover. The timber trees are mainly Dipterocarpaceae, Fagaceae, Syzygium, and Alstonia.


The forest trail was once a logging track. The big trees are those have grown since the logging.


The camps were set up before having lunch. After that, we visited the spots where the trap cameras were installed.

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Look, one participant does not obey the facilitator!


Participants searching for leaves.


One of Batek ladies who supervised the bamboo cooking.


One groups took the instruction seriously.


Another one combined it with efficiency and effectiveness.


But this particular group understood the instruction beyond the aesthetic and the functional aspects.


A moment before leaving the forest.The black plastic bag at rear left contains plastic rubbish. Ecoteer implements: (1) zero plastic is leaved on the forest; (2) the organic matters should be buried.


Tom is explaining how to make a brick from plastic bags.


Au Jin holds a square plastic brick, the wooden brick pressure is in the middle, three or four bags of plastic bags on the floor will be pressed to form a one kilo plastic brick.

Here below, some plants for sharing.


Plectrancthus monostachyus. It is called bangun-bangun in Malay. The leaves are used to fasten the wound heal as well as the tonic after the child birth.


Flower of Plectranthus monostachyus.


Flower bud of Etlingera elatior. It is called Kantan in Malay and used to taste and fragrant the dishes.


Fruits of Etlingera elatior. For my ethnic group - Batak, the fruits are pound to give sour taste and fragrant the "na ni arsik" fish dish. For Karo people, the fruit is used in same way for chicken soup.


Leaf of Piper sarmentosum. It is called Kaduk in Malay. I often put the leaves at the last when I made boil mix vegetables. It perfumes the dish and certainly increase the taste.


Flower of Piper sarmentosum.


Fruit of Piper sarmentosum.


I presume this ripe fruit belong to Glochidion.


Fruit bunch of Glochidion.


Leaves of Poilikospermum suaveolens.


Flower buds of Poilikospermum suaveolens.


Blossom flowers of Poilikospermum suaveolens.


A young tree of Pometia pinnata of Sapindaceae (the rambutan family). The ripe fruit has sweet taste. Although the flesh is thin, I like the taste and it also has delicate smell.


Tacca integrifolia


Flower of Tacca intergrifolia (photo was taken from internet). Numbers of plants have season for flowering and fruiting which is termed as Phenology. The season is often related to the mating and the breeding season of animals. We hardly saw flowers and fruits in the forest just because not the season.


An attractive fruits of Clerodendrum deflexum.


Fruit base of Lithocarpus.

We did not see any big animals. One of the reason might be due to the continuous rain and the absent of flower and fruits season in the forest. However, some participants said some wild boars entered the camping site in the early morning. It would be interesting to see how the forest life during the the fruiting and/or flowering season.


This is the first time I saw a bright color of hammer flat worm.


The sun bear claw mark on Lithocarpus trunk. I found it during the previous forest visit in March 2015.


Elephant dunk.

It is good to have some feed back from the participants. In general, they explained the program as:


Bring people together to a common focus on environmental issues.


Induce a deep thought on the causes and effects of the human activities.


Eager to sing "a beautiful song" action in person and echo it to the surround.

I observed some people already found their niche before they do the pledge.


Fitrah after recording the collected seed.


Najmi in finding his seedling.


Kai Ren when searching the seeds and seedlings.


And ... this is the most edvance one, Man from MyCat. He is the savior of the wild life.

Many of us are searching the activities to fit into social and ecological needs. Each of us has tasks towards the nature responsibilities. We need to see, observe, and understand what already available around. The photo below illustrate the situation.


A man in front of a huge duty until he can not see beyond to the other side. In, contrast, he is surrounded by possible options. He is even accompanied by a dedicated person to response to his questions. It is correct to not put distance, it would be wise to look around, it is proper to give response, and it is good to not look down. (Sorry Chris ...)