Danum Valley Conservation Area, Sabah, Malaysia
I woke up early to enjoy a final stroll along the canopy walkway of the Borneo Rainforest Lodge. Dawn in a tropical rainforest is a mystical time. As the sun rises, the mist churns among the trees. Woodpeckers and other birds fly in our line of sight, high in the canopy. We are not the earliest risers, as we can already hear the calls of hornbills and Bornean gibbons. A few days in a protected area such as Danum Valley highlights the importance of setting aside some nature reserves where the impact of people is limited to conservation and recreation.
About Me
- GJ Martin, GDF Director
- After receiving degrees in botany and anthropology in the early 1980s, I worked with indigenous communities in Mexico before co-founding People and Plants, an international initiative combining ethnobotany and the sustainable use of plants. In 1996, I received my doctorate in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and moved to Marrakech, Morocco. Three years later, I founded the Global Diversity Foundation (globaldiversity.org.uk) which helps indigenous people and local communities maintain their agricultural, biological and cultural heritage through an array of micro-projects encompassing research, training and social action. For the past decade I have been a Research Fellow and Lecturer at the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent in Canterbury, United Kingdom. From 2010, I will be a fellow at the Rachel Carson Center for Environmental Studies in Munich. My academic and practical work focuses on the inextricable links between our social and ecological worlds, which are at the heart of the biocultural diversity that makes communities around the world productive and resilient.
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