Sukau Rainforest Lodge Receives Two Nominations at the 15th World Travel Awards

Sukau Rainforest Lodge of Sabah, on Malaysian Borneo was recently nominated for two award categories at the 15th World Travel Awards in 2008. It is nominated as one of the nine World's Leading Eco-Lodges and one of Asia's 5 Leading Green Hotels. The voting involved 167,000 travel professionals worldwide with the aim to acknowledge, reward and celebrate the enormous achievements to be found in all sectors of the global travel industry.

World Travel Awards aim has been to encourage world-class competition, stimulate innovation and creativity as well as ensure that travellers receive exceptional value. Winners are judged on their ability, such as the ability to understand visitor needs and expectations; maximise business performance; value personnel; undertake enterprising product expansion and development; foster innovation and creativity as well as work together as a team externally and internally.

The 20 rooms award winning Sukau Rainforest Lodge www.sukau.com is located at the edge of the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, home to the endemic Borneo Pygmy elephants, eight species of Bornean hornbills and ten species of primates including orang utan, proboscis monkeys among others. Sukau Rainforest Lodge is managed by Borneo Eco Tours. www.borneoecotours.com

Read more at http://www.worldtravelawards.com/nominees2008-13

As we are just coming out of the monsoon season in Malaysia this programme has not run for the last few months.

As an update on the progress of the programme, I have dug up some pictures donated by those on our June & September programmes.

Out and about looking for wildlife:

When booking onto a safari there is no guarantee as to what animals / birds etc will be seen. The group who took part in the June programme did not spot any pygmy elephants during their time in Sukau, but the September group were lucky enough to spot several groups on more than one occasion.









And then what do we see.........









Both of our groups in 2008 were lucky enough to see orangutans in the wild. The June group spotted 6 orangutans including a huge dominant male on the boat ride into Sukau. The September group managed to see a similar number including a mother with 2 babies.

Come rain or sun, we cruise the rivers and tributaries. GPRS readings are taken for a range of the endangered animals including: orangutans, pygmy elephants, gibbons, proboscis monkeys. Also for a variety of birds: horn bills, storm storks to name a few. These readings are all input into a database and used to track the species and numbers in the local area.



Working with the school:

The school mural was started by the group In June. This was completed by those on our September 08 programme:



Volunteers have the opportunity to maintain the tree's planted by previous volunteers and where possible plant new saplings.