Rimba Ilmu co-organized a workshop with Macaranga titled Constructive Journalism, Climate Disinformation and Indigenous People which drew a mix of journalists and communicators/activists. They worked on identifying "red flags" in the narratives and framing of climate issues specifically impacting Orang Asal communities, understanding how to apply FPIC (Free, Prior, and Informed Consent) standards to protect community integrity and build trust in their reporting, applying the three pillars of Constructive Journalism to move past "feel-good" stories and highlight credible and scalable responses that honour Indigenous agency, and to develop pitches for one of three story grants and a 3-month long mentorship by Macaranga.
We also had a visit from Victor Shields from Picturae, an organization that focuses on providing institutions tools and equipments necessary for big-scaled digitization. The next course of action is to liaise with necessary ministries and other herbariums to consolidate the best location to place their equipment in Peninsular Malaysia.
We received a research visit from Prof. Fuminori Ito and colleagues from Kagawa University, Japan. Their goal was to study the behaviours of ant colonies in Rimba Ilmu. Following that, Lau Kah Koo from FRIM visited KLU to study Aquilaria specimens.
Lastly, Dr. Yong gave a guided walk to 25 students from College of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, China.
