Text by Katie King, LEAP Project Manager

​Friday July 17th, 2009 saw the ground breaking for the long anticipated Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC), which will be adjacent to the famous Sepilok Orangutan Centre, 14 miles outside of Sandakan, Sabah. The event marked the commencement of construction of the first phase of BSBCC, which aims to provide rehabilitation and care for captive Sun Bears, and will be the first of its kind in Sabah.

July 17, 2009 20:17 PM
Borneo Sun Bear Conservation Centre To Be Built In Sepilok
By: Ramjit

SANDAKAN, July 17 (Bernama) - A Borneo sun bear conservation centre will be set up in Sepilok here in an effort to prevent the endangered animal from becoming extinct.

It will be next to the Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sepilok, and the ground-breaking ceremony for the project was officiated by state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun, here, Friday.

Director of the sun bear conservation centre, Cynthia Ong, said the centre, to be built in three phases, would have facilities including a home that could accommodate 43 sun bears, a visitors' area, a gallery for exhibits and a natural walkway.

She said two hectares of the centre were located in the Kabili-Sepilok Forest Reserve area, hence allowing the bears to live in a natural environment.
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The fund raising event on July 9th hosted by Nancy Abraham and Alexander Abraham Foundation was a big success! I want to specially thank Nancy, Brienne, and Eleonore for their great help to set this event up in such a short notice. About 35 guests attended the lovely evening start with light refreshment and snacks, and then followed with the showing of BEARTREK video clip and my ppt presentation on the plights of the sun bears. Thank you all of you for taking the time to join us that evening!

​Beside we managed to raise some fund for BSBCC during the event, the other important message from the evening is to raise awareness about sun bears. Most of the guests do not have a clue what are a sun bear, let alone the problem face by this little bears. There are so many things that all of us can do beside giving donation.

BSBCC has come a long way. For more than one year we have been working really hard to fund raise to set up the center. We are truly blessed with a lot of helps from many people, we are half way there. We are half way there to give the cage sun bear under our care a new and better home; we are half way there to do whatever we plan to do the help sun bears; we are half way there…
This time we have another big help from a group from young people from UK: the South East Scotland Scouts, who traveled half across the world to help sun bears and help us build the centre.

Please visit http://malaysia.sesscouts.org.uk and read the two following blogs about their life and work under the tropical sun of Sabah!

Thank you Scouts! http://malaysia.sesscouts.org.uk/?cat=6

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Team 1 makes furry friends.
​Posted July 12, 2009 By brian and has no comments yet.

GROUND-BREAKING CEREMONY on Friday, 17th July, 2009 at 9:00 am

Press Release 

The Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC) ground-breaking ceremony on 17th July 2009, at BSBCC Phase I site adjacent to Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre near Sandakan represents the beginning of construction of this three-phased project. The project is a partnership between the Sabah Wildlife Department, the Sabah Forestry Department and the NGO LEAP. The Guest of Honour for the event is YB Datuk Masidi Manjun, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment, and the programme will include the ceremony at the site of the new bear house and forested enclosures as well as a chance to view some of the Sun Bears currently at the Centre. This ground-breaking signifies the start of Phase I of construction of the Centre and marks a significant step in the establishment of a new home for captive Sun Bears in Sabah, where they will have daily access to the forest and an enriched environment, as well as improved, custom built night quarters. Phase I, which is expected to be completed in six months from the date of ground-breaking, involves the construction of a new bear house with capacity for 27 bears (each individual cages) and an adjacent one-hectare forest enclosure within the Kabili-Sepilok Virgin Jungle Reserve. Please see Phase I site plan for layout. The finished centre will have capacity for43 bears, two-hectare forest enclosures, a visitor centre, an observation gallery and a nature trail. Please see Phase I, II & III site plan for layout. The larger vision is for the bears to be in an environment which will prepare suitable ones for eventual release into appropriate wild habitat.RM1.3 million was raised at the Bear Necessities fundraising dinner in Kota Kinabalu in November last year, with RM650,000 from the private sector and a government match of one-to-one. These funds will go directly to the funding of Phase I. Efforts are now underway to raise funds for both Phase II (RM600,000) and Phase III (RM900,000), and the hope is that these phases will follow up on the completion of Phase I.                                                       

Text by Ng Wai Pak 

A group of master students majoring in Forestry from University Putra Malaysia visited BSBCC on 6th July 2009. Wai Pak gave them an introduction about Malayan sun bear, their conservation issues, and our centre concepts, mission and planning. They also have the chance to see how the bear having their enrichment program in the exercise enclosures.

They agreed that sun bear were not well known by our people. They were glad that BSBCC is not only will involve the rehabilitation work, but alsol emphasis on environment education to raise the public awareness on sun bears and the tropical rainforest.
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BSBCC is happy to have more visitors from universities as well as other institutions. Even though we have do not have our facilities properly built, we are trying our best to explain to our visitors about our very unique sun bears, their situation and their threats.

Text by Wai Pak Ng

​​On July 2, Sylvia Alsisto from Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre came and asked me to present a talk about sun bear and BSBCC. Of course I am more than happy to do that as I had done that to several groups of volunteer. However, it ended up with a three-day talk to three groups of students. The most challenging part was the audience was ranged from 8 – 17 years old school kids! I have to tell you that the first image that bangs into my minds was a group of “monkey” yelling and jumping here and there!