... and even then we had to swap our boat for a slimmer one before we weaved between flanks of bakau kurap, an especially ubiquitous species of mangrove found here. In the rustle of the breeze, they seemed almost human to me—their roots like a dancer’s arched feet, their slim, spear-like seeds hanging from their branches like a woman’s earrings, waiting to fall off and grow new roots in the soil. //
#edwrites #rivers #kinabatangan #sabah #borneo #malaysia #mangroves
An excerpt:
// While ambient sounds provided a soundtrack for my thoughts—in one village, it was the muezzin; in another, a neighbour partaking in a passionate karaoke session that seemed to swell the air above the open water—what kept coming back to me was the memory of entering the village of Pitas Laut, narrowing into a winding tributary under the hooded shelter of #mangrove trees. We could do so only because the water was “turned on”, as the villagers describe it in Malay...
I also have an essay on the #river journeys I've taken in the latest issue of #MekongReview.
You can read it here: https://mekongreview.com/peering-around-river-bends/
If you don't have a subscription, get one here: https://mekongreview.com/subscribe/
Earlier this year, I promised myself I would take a break from the story research-and-pitching cycle and start making a proper dent in my personal writing projects—which I've always too easily left to the backburner. But already, I have wavered in this resolve, spending some weeks wallowing in indecision and the FOMO of what I should instead be doing (to help a cause/stay relevant/earn more money, etc) before getting back—I think!—on track again. All a work in progress 😑
I'll be writing extended reflections on this for my #newsletter at some point too. Sign up here if you'd like to read it and catch up with the archive in the meantime: https://movableworlds.co—thanks in advance!
Letters about trying to make sense of a rapidly changing world and our place in it—by reading, walking, writing. Dispatched from Berlin, Kuala Lumpur, and places in between. Click to read Movable Worlds, by Emily Ding, a Substack publication with thousands of subscribers.
I had meant to write a story about the mangrove rehabilitation projects done by the Sabah Forestry Department, but once I began to look into it, this other question cropped up and began to interest me more. I hope the story offers some food for thought—though it can be disheartening to see how big corporate actors are often given a pass to do harm first, and because they become too powerful to ignore, how changemakers are then forced to work with them to clean up the mess...
Travelling in #Sabah, it's struck me how many #conservation initiatives are funded by #palmoil companies, who have been a major source of #deforestation in the state. I had also noticed many conservationists working with palm oil plantations, in part because they need to access them to better study the #wildlife that are increasingly found to be roaming there. This threw up questions that led to my latest published story: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/6/28/can-plantations-value-more-than-profit-some-in-malaysia-think-so
Again, something I should have shared earlier.
Here's a #longform story I wrote for South China Morning Post's April magazine about why we should all care more about the increased emergence of #zoonotic diseases: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3217891/deadly-virus-malaysia-shows-how-next-covid-19-pandemic-could-be-just-around-corner
Since SCMP is paywalled though, you can read the story on my website: https://www.emilyding.me/nipah-and-zoonotic-disease
I found this story incredibly interesting to report and research and there will definitely be more riffing off it in a newsletter!
I'm drawn to places I don’t know much about and on which there isn't too much online. #Sabah has #Malaysia’s largest expanse of #mangroves and the Lower #Kinabatangan-Segama #Wetlands forms the largest contiguous tract in the southern Sulu Sea, but I had never heard of it before. I was only familiar with the Kinabatangan tourists visit for wildlife-spotting river cruises. So my curiosity started from a very basic place: What does this place look like? How do the people there live?
...This is a reminder not to overlook them. Let's recognise the gifts of nature we have before they're on the brink of disappearing.
Also, do wait for the page to finish loading before scrolling through: https://betweenthelines.my/sabahs-custodians-of-the-mangrove-forests-between-land-and-sea/
& Don't forget to subscribe to BTL if you're interested in Malaysian news. The team publishes curated summaries as well as original reportage "specials" like my story. Sign up here: https://betweenthelines.my
Writer Emily Ding speaks with fisherfolk along Sabah’s Lower Kinabatangan-Segama Wetlands on climate change, the link between the communities there and Malaysia’s mangrove forest, and why it needs preserving.
Emily Ding
