Gunung Penrissen

The Borneo Highlands are both mysterious and magical. It is a living museum of remarkable plants and animals. These forests harbour trees ranging from the stunted to the towering, many with exquisite flowers, ferns, herbaceous flora, as well as uncountable endemic insects and vertebrate animals.

There is a lack of information on the biodiversity of Gunung Penrissen, a mountain on the Sarawak/Kalimantan border, but a growing demand for such information from visitors, scientists, sociologists and conservation managers. This book draws material from new research and a review of literature. The many images provide breathtaking views of the state for tourist as well as offer important geological and species-specific information for researchers and the general public. Introductory chapters give insight into the studies of biological diversity of this area, spanning three centuries. The geomorphology of this area to brought to life by maps painstakingly produced for the volume The botanical chapters showcase some of the unique flora of the Borneo highlands, including the pitcher plants, Rafflesia and its host plant, aroids and other ground flora and Amorphophallus. The chapters covering animal life range from land snails and slugs and stream-dwelling invertebrates, such as crabs and shrimps, to the more charismatic butterflies, and among the vertebrates, from fish, frogs and reptiles, to the birds and mammals The social elements that contribute to the maintenance of this biodiversity, be it use or suggestions for its conservation, are described in chapters that range from the human use of resources of the Borneo highlands, to ecotourism, a novel way to protect natural sites, It is the use of such information that has the potential to save such areas for posterity. The final chapter on biodiversity binds all such information on Penrissen together.