Several of our fireflies night time recce work have included rivers withing the Miri area, some in urban centers such as Miri. Sg Miri as have recently been found to harbor a respectable number of display trees along it's bank. It seemed appropriate that we kicked off our first CFZ event at Pustaka Negari Sarawak Miri Branch, centrally located and well equipped for the occasion.
The day started off with a coloring contest in the morning emceed by Faye Osman, Branch Chair and facilitated by Ahmad Samsudin, librarian and event focal point and his able crew. Several branch members were on hand to assist including Anura Dason, Branch Vice-chair; Puteri Shariza Megat Khaled, Branch Secretary; and Musa Musbah, key event resource and CFZ Project Executor.
A portion of our young participants, CFZ project team, branch members and the public at the start of the Firefly presentation.
Encik Musa Musbah, biostratigrapher specialising in nano-plankton fossils giving as talk in his role as Project Executor for CFZSNS 2010.
From the left: Faye Osman (Branch Chair), Yung Lin Lim (MNS Miri-Reefcheck) and Anura Dason (Branch Vice-chair). Behid them from the left are CFZ project volunteers D. Dodge-Wan and S. Wong.
Students and parents listening to the talk.
Our young artists and their winning artwork post prize giving.
Almost forty children participated in the coloring contest, ranging in age from age 9 to 12 years old. Eager parents also came along to givesupport and encouragement.
Several schools took the advantage of the post-exam lull to send their students to the event chaperoned by their teachers. The coloring contest tself lasted for 2hrs with a short lunch break before the start of the actual talk and slideshow, Pustaka has generously sponsored packed lunch for participating children and facilitators.
At the talk, Musa covered introductions to fireflies which included types of fireflies found in Sarawak, their lifecycle, research and conservation. The audience was also given the latest update on CFZ work in Miri by our project team to date. Relevant links between fireflies and a healthy river system as well as the need for more work in the area were well highlighted by Musa.
At the same event, MNS Miri-Reefcheck took the opportunity to give an update about the recent activities of the project via a presentation by Yung Lin Lim. Several training sessions with major stakeholders have been completed, all of which included local divers. Yung Lin also presented a brief overview of the results of reef surveys to date.
Concluding the talks, three top winners (sponsored by Miri Branch); three consolation prizes (sponsored by Pustaka) including one lucky draw (a one-year MNS family membership sponsored by branch) were handed out by Anura and Ahmad during a short ceremony at the end of the talk.
Future community outreach activities by the branch would target riverside communities along rivers and the coasts such as Kpg Kuala Nyalau along Sg Nyalau (cfz completed oct 2010), Bekenu town along upper Sg Sibuti, Kpg Kuala Sibuti at the estuary of Sg Sibuti (cfz completed oct 2010), Kpg Bakam (cfz outstanding) along Sg Bakam, Kpg Kuala Niah and Kpg Kuala Suai for Sg Niah (cfz completed Aug 2010) and Kpg Kuala Suai (cfz planned for Q1 2011).
All these activities will be delivered together with members from branch project teams. Coral reef, dolphins, waterbirds and fireflies are the perfect four combined for this in community awareness sessions.
Article and pictures by Nazeri Abghani/MNS Miri/CFZSNS2010
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