The Kinabatangan (Borneo) Forest Restoration project is based in the village of Sukau, where local women will be entrusted with tree replanting and care, thus also providing a financial benefit to the local village as well as to wildlife.
The project will recreate forest corridors for wildlife. Forest fragmentation in the Lower Kinabatangan River region is the major threat to the long-term survival of wildlife and proactive measures are the key to success. The area to be planted is a 2.5 acre parcel devoid of trees as a result of past human activities where natural forest restoration is hardly possible. Past logging activities have resulted in the destruction of the seed bank contained in the soil and have compacted the soil, so that natural forest regeneration will take too long to occur, if it is at all possible. In order to recreate corridors for wildlife, particularly orangutans, native, fast-growing tree species will be planted.
