Tropical Forest Restoration Ecology within a Global South Contex
Institution:
Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos (UAEM), Mexico
Amaziasizamoria Jumail is a research officer at the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) in Sabah, where she is currently working on the Regrow Borneo project in the Kinabatangan floodplain to sequester carbon through reforestation.
Amaziasizamoria plans to undergo her attachment to Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos (UAEM), Mexico where she will be studying “Tropical Forest Restoration Ecology within a Global South Context.”
In Sabah, the Kinabatangan floodplain is an important habitat for biodiversity and offers suitable opportunities for carbon sequestration. Unfortunately, 80% of the forest has been converted for non-forest uses. The Regrow Borneo project, for example, in the Kinabatangan floodplain was established in 2019 to sequester carbon by replanting trees. Such reforestation efforts are also essential towards improving the livelihood of local communities as well as enhancing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience.
However, while many forest restoration efforts have been implemented in Malaysia, there has been no large-scale assessment on studying the impacts of forest restoration to-date.
Amaziasizamoria’s attachment to Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos (UAEM), Mexico aims to study suitable indicators for reforestation efforts such as forest structure, ecological functions, and biodiversity as feasible methods to evaluate the outcome of effective forest restoration.
As Malaysia and Mexico are biodiversity hotspots facing comparable challenges in terms of deforestation, climate change and socio-economic impacts, this attachment will enable her to work with a world-renowned research team and learn from an existing model that could be used as a guideline for the Bornean rainforest