Kuala Belait - Four large sacks of white rice, cooking gas cannisters and a box full of canned food. These are among the supplies that will sustain a team of more than 35 researchers for two weeks in the remote, no-network connectivity forests of Sungai Ingei.

"This is food that we can bring to the forest easily," explained Ang Bee Biaw, the project administrator of the faunal biodiversity survey.

Ang, who is also a Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) PhD student and in charge of logistics for the expedition, said that they brought food in surplus amounts in case of any eventualities.

Meanwhile, the team will also look to the river itself as a source of drinking water as the water there was "very clean". Nonetheless, they brought along water purifying tablets to ensure that the river water was really safe to drink, she added.

For the students and researchers' safety, two paramedics, with a portable defibrillator, and six forest police personnel will accompany the team throughout their study. The students themselves have also been trained to administer first-aid.

A base camp, which took four months to erect prior to the expedition, has also been stocked with other supplies in the build up to the start of the study.

Both the supplies and the participants of the survey made their way to Sungai Ingei Protection Forest by temuai (long boat).

"The biggest challenge were the boats, since we have to pile everything onto six boats. So we have to make two trips since everything couldn't fit in one go," Mg said.

According to one of the temuai operators, it takes five to six hours to reach Sungai Ingei from the Bukit Sawat jetty, where the team departed from.

The Brunei Times

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