Rimba Ilmu led five guided walks in the month of July. First, Prof. Kothanda Raman from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, visited Rimba Ilmu on 3rd July 2026. He was accompanied by Prof. Ramesh T. Subramaniam, Director of IAS. Their visit by led by Dr Yong.
As for the following groups: Woods Eco-Cuisine, YCTP TRCRC 20206, Erasmus Staff Mobility Programme and Vantris Energy Berhad, they were all led by Ilyana Hassya, Rimba Ilmu's research officer. The first group requested a medicinal plant and herbs focused guided walk while the second one is a repeat visitor from the last few years. Their annual program would bring their participants to multiple organisations in the environment field and Rimba Ilmu is one of them. The staff mobility programme included management staff from multiple countries like Turkey, Poland, and Slovakia. For Vantris Energy Berhad, they requested a short games activity on top of the guided walk. The visitors were on their teambuilding excursion and enjoyed participating in games that relied on their communication, camarederie, and teamwork.
As for the research done in Rimba for the month of July, we had Calvin Shee from the Institute of Biological Sciences, Universiti Malaya who is doing research on the microbiome of Nepenthes pitcher fluids under the supervision of Prof. Chan Kok Gan. His initial observation concluded that the pitcher plant in the botanical garden requires about 6 more months of growth before it can be considered suitable for the enzyme study. Thankfully the pitcher plant in our conservatory was viable for his study. Lastly, on 21st July 2026 the final sampling of the aquatic ecology study was conducted with participants from Forensic Entomology Workshop 2026: Aquatic Forensic Ecology. The workshop combined lectures, hands-on practical sessions, and fieldwork to Rimba Ilmu to provide training for forensic entomology and aquatic forensic ecology. After their sampling ended, all shoes were brought back to Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya for further analysis for the workshop.
