Developing community participation
To stop poaching, two strategies were used. First, we visited
the poachers individually at their homes and discussed
with them the importance of conserving hornbills for the
future of their children. These suggestions included
improvement of watershed forest, preservation of plant
diversity, maintaining the balance of forest ecosystems,
and recognizing their importance as sources of forest
products and knowledge for the younger generations. In
addition, conserving hornbills in their natural habitat had
high potential for promoting ecotourism, which would
generate sustainable income for the local community.
Secondly, announcements at the mosque during gatherings
for weekly prayer, and using local Muslim project coordinators
who spoke the local dialect (Yawi), persuaded
potential poachers who had hornbill nests under surveillance
to participate in the project.
To compensate for their loss of extra income, poachers
were offered wages on a daily basis if they worked as the
project’s research assistants to collect data. Once trust was
gained, poachers (villagers hereafter) gradually contacted
and registered their nests, and were trained to be the project’s
research assistants. The training included making
observation blinds, recording data, and following developments
at the nest (Poonswad et al. 1987).
Data collection
In the 1994 breeding season, the villagers began to check
for nest sealing, a sign that females were actually nesting,
and chick fledging, evidence of breeding success. From
1995 onward, they searched for new nests, observed nest
sealing, recording nest loss and breeding success. However,
due to the unrest situation, not all sealed nests
recorded in each breeding season were checked to determine
the breeding success. By the 2000 breeding season,
the villagers were trained to access a nest cavity by ropeclimbing
to inspect the nest conditions and to repair it
where needed. Due to the unrest situation, only accessible
nests were kept under observation. Nest locations were
mapped using a GPS (GPS12 Garmin Olathe, Kansas,
USA), and each nest tree was identified and its diameter at
breast height (dbh) measured.
Hornbill family adoption
In 1997, Thailand’s economy was in crisis and this had a
severe impact on running this newly-born project. An idea,
the ‘hornbill family adoption’ concept (nest adoption
hereafter) was initiated, where people outside the Budo
community shared their conservation conscience. The
process included choosing a hornbill species and the
number of nests/families they wished to adopt, and then
paying an annual fee of US$150/nest. One hundred percent
of the money collected from fees is spent on hiring the
ex-poachers/villagers to guard and collect data at the nests.
At the end of the breeding season, the adopter receives a
report with photographs of the nest watcher/villager, the
hornbill, the nest tree, food delivered to the nest and other
scientific data. The project also promoted visits to observe
breeding hornbills, where any participant who wishes to
visit the hornbill(s) that they adopted hires the villager as a
guide and the hornbill project arranges all logistics for
them at their own expense.
Education outreach program
A hornbill conservation camp was organized 1–4 times per
year, depending on the situation in the area, when 5–6
children of similar grade from schools around Budo were
invited. Due to the unrest situation, hornbill conservation
camps for schoolchildren from around Budo between 2006
and 2007 could be organized four times per year. Schoolteachers
and children who attended the ‘hornbill conservation
camp’ learned basic knowledge of the morphology,
biology and ecology of hornbills, their important roles in
forest ecosystems and general forest ecology, together with
activities to enhance understanding.
Between 2008 and 2009, the unrest situation became
more violent and so, to reduce risks for children traveling
to the camp site at Budo Sungai Padi National Park
Headquarters, mobile education units were used to visit
schools whenever possible. Illustrated talks on the same
basic knowledge as the above were presented.
Other activities to promote conservation understanding
and awareness included, field trips to observe breeding
hornbills, restoring forest habitat, using hornbills in arts
(painting and making batik), and painting murals on school
boundary fences and walls.
Results
Community-based conservation
The number of poachers that participated in the project is
shown in Table 1. During 1994–2009, within the study area,
there had been difficulties with the unrest situation almost
throughout, but the most serious period was between 2004
and the present (2010). At the beginning, there were 38
known nests registered between January and May 1994 by 9
villagers who participated in the project (Table 1). However,
cumulatively there were 50 villagers from 13 villages
that participated and observed 1,170 nest cavity-years
(Tables 1, 2). The number of villagers involved changed