Wild Asia - A Sylvan Hideaway

Work stress, chock-a-block traffic, grating din and raucous crowd define city life. Living amid nature at Mawai Eco Camp in Johor, MEI LEONG finds her 'ideal' ecotourism model and regains her sanity.

Something about Mawai Eco Camp emits good vibes. Setting foot in the camp after crossing the Sedili river by boat, I felt revived and strangely at ease despite the long drive to Mawai Lama, north of Kota Tinggi, Johor.

Perhaps it's the wall-less, attaproof houses, and miles of luxuriant, green foliage.

Nestled in a mangrove forest on the south bank of Sedili river, the 'camp' is a cluster of wooden longhouses on stilts that sit in a swamp. It faces a green field dotted with small ponds, fringed by lush forest and palm-tree plantations. Designed by prominent Singapore architect, Tay Kheng Soon, 63, a former Commissioner of the Singapore Scouts, the longhouses were built by the Jakun Orang Asli from Endau, Johor in 1998.

"For many years, it has been a dream to have an educational camp in the wilderness for urbanised children and adults especially in a world that has become too 'virtual'," said Tay in an e-mail interview.

"The site at Mawai was near enough to urban centres yet wild enough to give a real experience of nature," added Tay. "So together with some friends, Eco Camp was born."

In 2001, Edu Outdoor Activities (EOA), an outdoor company with a Kluang and Singapore office, started running camps for mainly Singapore schools and corporate companies. EOA's co-founders and brothers, Leong Kwok Peng, 47 and Leong Kwok Kuen, 36, are Tay's long-time friends. Guided by experienced wardens, EOA programmes teach nature appreciation to children, youth and adults, and use nature as a classroom for corporate training.

"The objective of the camp is to build confidence, a sense of adventure and empathy towards nature," said Tay who is the chief camp warden. "Our camp's motto is, Keep an eye on self and nature."

I joined a group of Singaporean visitors on a two-day eco-education programme. Unlike the usual large school and company groups, our cosy party comprised close friends of EOA organisers, couples, a father and his young daughter and two 14-year-old boys on their first foray into the forest. Our simple itinerary lists nature walks, river cruise, firefly excursion and campfire as some of the activities.

After everyone settled in, we had a safety briefing and introduction session. One of the two camp wardens, Sutari Supari, talked about the camp's origins and objectives, and introduced his team. We met the other camp warden, Kwok Peng, who's also a marine conservationist, the volunteer camp instructors, Mahat, Kamal and Lek, the Orang Asli boatman and helpers, and Kak Nina, the cook who whipped up scrumptious meals (as we found out later).

Water flows from nearby Gunung Panti (530m) to the Sedili river that meanders about 100km into the South China Sea. Mawai camp sits about 50km from the Sedili Besar river mouth and is affected by daily tidal influence from the South China Sea.

Bordered by peat swamp forest, the area teems with aquatic life like river crocodiles, prawns and freshwater fish, and more than 130 species of birds have been sighted. Glimpses of tapir, sambar deer, panthers, white gibbons and long-tailed macaque are not uncommon in the jungle nearby.

Sutari, 52, doled out camp safety tips like donning life jackets for river cruises.

Eco camp practises the DIY concept. Drinking water and rose syrup aside, we made our own tea and coffee in the kitchen, helped ourselves to the buffet spread and washed up after each meal. Recycling bins were placed aside for plastic bottles and cans.

"We try to bring nature to people," explained Kwok Kuen, EOA's programme manager. On nature walks and river cruises, visitors learn to identify the flora and fauna. School camp programmes include learning outdoor skills, camp craft, first aid, orienteering, jungle survival and conservation issues. EOA's corporate programmes like ecomapping and resilience mapping use nature as a tool for developing business principles and concepts. For instance, on a trek up Gunung Lambak (510m), corporate staff learn to overcome natural obstacles like fatigue and tricky trails, and cultivate the never-say-die attitude.

"For example," said Kwok Kuen, "Successful people fail many times but they never give up."

On our river cruise, Sutari, clasping his binoculars, spotted the different bird species with lightning speed and hurled out their names. We spotted a pair of Oriental Pied Hornbills perched on a tree, a Cinnamonheaded pigeon, Chestnutwinged Babbler and Pied Fantail flying past. Unsurprisingly, the "walking encyclopaedia" is coauthor and illustrator of the Birds of Singapore book and a committee member and resident artist for the bird group of Singapore Nature Society.

Cracking jokes and spinning yarns, he made learning fun as he pointed out the common trees found in a peat swamp forest like putat (Barringtonia conoidea), rassau (Pandanus helicopus) and rengas (Gluta velutina). We were lucky to witness the pig-tailed macaque, white-handed gibbon and dusky leaf monkey frolicking in the trees as our boat glided past.

Our jungle walk, peppered with Sutari's infectious guffaws, was a slow trudge on the porridge-like, muddy ground. Sutari showed us the edible plants and medicinal leaves that will save our lives if we ever get lost in the jungle.

The buffet-style meals were quite a sumptuous affair. One dinner was kampung-style briyani with curry chicken, sautéed black-sauce beef, and stir-fried French beans with tempe and fishballs. Dessert was rambutan, watermelon and bananas bought from the locals in nearby Mawai Lama.

Life in Mawai camp was going back to basics. My stretcher-like bed was cleverly set up from two long and two short wooden sticks and a cloth canvas. There was no blaring television or radio. There was no electricity supply aside from a generator used for laptop hook-ups during corporate training programmes.

Cool breeze made up for the lack of fan. At night, the soft glow of kerosene, gas and carbide lamps illuminated the camp. Au naturale entertainment meant listening to the crickets, birds and monkeys' impromptu concerto, or watching the languid leaves stir and sway to the gentle gust. After dinner, visitors gathered in the dining room and joined in a sing-along as Kwok Peng strummed the guitar.

Deep in the night, the melodic chirping of insects lulled me into deep slumber. At dawn, the jungle fowls' loud crows gave me a rude awakening.

A visitor, Tag Sin Siew, 45, wanted his six-year-old daughter, Wanyi, to experience living close to, and learning about nature.

"I used to grow up in a farm in Johor but my family moved to Singapore when I was 13," said Tag who found out about Mawai during the Nature Day exhibition in Singapore. "Kids in Singapore, especially, miss the fun of being close to nature."

Tag finds the activities exciting and filled with enriching knowledge. Before coming to Mawai, he expected a dirty and messy environment since it's close to the jungle. "It's clean, quiet and we're surrounded by the green forest," said Tag. "It's very safe for kids, and most of all, there're no mosquitoes! (The brackish swamp water is too acidic for mosquitoes to breed)

"Wanyi enjoyed the camp very much, especially the obstacle course and the stretcher-like bed," added Tag. "But she didn't like getting muddy and dirty on the jungle walk."

Before we said goodbye on Sunday, Tag said he's definitely coming back with his friends and their families.

Ecotourism is defined as environmentally responsible travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and any accompanying features, both past and present), that promotes conservation, has low visitor impact, and provides for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local populations. - Source: Malaysia National Ecotourism Plan

The collaboration between Tay Kheng Soon and the orang asli didn't occur by chance.

Tay was trekking in the Ulu Rompin area with some Orang Asli guides. To lighten the load, they had to leave out the tents. The guides built a temporary shelter out of green sticks and Daun Payung leaves and everybody slept in hammocks slung between the sticks.

"I was inspired by the elegance and effectiveness of the shelter and the speed in which it was built," said Tay. "So I asked them if they could build a permanent longhouse in Mawai."

The Orang Asli are from the Endau-Rompin area and Tay got to know them quite well over several trekking expeditions.

"We became good friends and there was mutual respect," said Tay. "It has worked very well over the years."

Poring over Tay's rough sketches, the Orang Asli, led by Kamal, 45, got to work. The six-man team went into the swamp forest and scouted for strong wood like Gambir and Pelawan to build the posts and beams for the longhouse. Trees were selectively cut to encourage rapid growth.

"I learned my building skills from observing my father and grandfather and eventually built my own house in Kg Peta," said Kamal in Malay.

"Our traditional houses use rotan instead of nails to construct the house, and nipah thatch for the roof." Orang Asli houses usually last only a few years before they're rebuilt again. At the camp, nails and standard roofs were used for longer maintenance. Kamal and his team constructed the longhouses without using a ladder.

"The Orang Asli had no difficulty reading the rough sketches," said Tay. "They are natural builders with lots of commonsense and worked very well as a team."

Whenever they faced minor glitches, like stabilising the piles in the swampy ground, the builders improvised by using wood bracing to support the structures, Kamal added.

In recent years, the Ecotourism tag has been misused and misunderstood by tour and resorts operators and even certain tourism agencies.

To keep the natural habitat intact, no land was cleared nor mature trees logged to build the camp. Rainwater is collected in the ponds, filtered and pumped for shower and washing purposes. Drinking water is boiled to kill bacteria.

The longhouses' floorboards are salvaged planks bought from a nearby timber yard. Organic waste is used for making composts. The wastewater is bio-digested in aerobic and anaerobic tanks. The overflow goes into ponds where the lotus and other water plants soak up the nutrient-rich water before it flows into Sedili river.

"Whatever we do, we have to think of the impact our activities have on the environment,"said Kwok Kuen.

The camp also tries to involve the local community as much as they can. The cooks come from the nearby kampung, and the local boatmen are involved in security and ferrying people and goods.

"Quite often, they participate in camp fires and other activities," said Tay. "We purchase our fruits and groceries from the nearby shops."

"We have become a part of the local community,"said Tay, whose (architecture) firm's philosophy believes architectural expression "must be part of a place, its history and its culture. It must restore man's balance with nature and inspire human aspirations."

Perhaps, the so-called ecotourism operators and guides can learn a thing or two from these EOA chaps and use Mawai as the near ideal ecotourism model.

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