Objectives of the Project
(a) initiate a community-based watershed management system;
(b) educate the community on the conservation and sustainable use of the biodiversity;
(c) promote alternative income generation and sustainable livelihood through
environmentally sound socio-economic activities that will mitigate the contribution
towards the impact on climatic changes.

Objectives Met
They are (a) and (c) for reasons that sufficient education was directed at explaining to the community the importance of managing the watershed to ensure the viability and sustainability of the micro-hydro project. The power generated has enabled the community to reduce the use of firewood and kerosene which produce toxic fumes hazardous to the health of the households in the longhouse community. Such alternatives have drastic the community?s dependence on firewood from the nearby forest. Lesser tree-cutting activities further entail lesser necessity to clear the surrounding biodiversity and thus mitigate the impact on climatic changes. With the power generating, the women are especially and young girls are empowered to engage in socio-economic activities such as planting different kinds of vegetables and fertilizing them with composts, making cassava chips, make cakes an cook other dishes that to ensure varieties in their daily consumption, other than sago, their stable diet and occasionally, meat and fish.


Objective Less Successfully Met
It will be objective (b) because of the lack of regular seminars to enable the community to understand the rationale behind the need for the conservation and sustainable use of the biodiversity. One outstanding obstacle faced is the high level of illiteracy and the limited capacity to comprehend concepts such as conservation and sustainable use of the biodiversity. Although pictorial illustrations are used, the medium of communication posed yet another problem. Explanation was done in Malay rather than the local vernacular which is Murut. The linguistic gap does not foster comprehension of unfamiliar terms and expressions, let alone concepts.

The Principal Positive Aspects of the Project
(a) The socio-economic aspect of the project in which the community, especially the women learnt about food processing. In fact in the last two visits, cassava chips were proudly served to the guests of honour.

(b) Due attention was paid to agricultural activities such as making compost; planting of gingers, planting of vegetables such as egg-plant, long beans, and even how to make the batas (vegetable beds);

(c) The women of the community engage in making handicrafts and marketing them through PACOS? members or sold to visiting friends of PACOS and Tonibung.

(d) Attention was given to organizational building wherein a group of the local committee made a trip to PACOS office and participated in the programmes, for instance, the men to Tieran and the women to UMS (University Malaysia Sabah); some went to the beach and had a glimpse of the sea for the first time in their lives.

(e) Most unexpected of all, educational activity such as running the Tadika (kindergarten), though totally unplanned, was envisioned due to the exposure to the Tadika during their visits to Kota Kinabalu and it was duly implemented. Two young Murut men (Samuel and Muming) were initially trained and two others have been earmarked for training in order to staff the burgeoning Tadika in kampong Bantul.

(f) Last and perhaps most important is the cultural empowerment of the community in which young girls were sent to Labang, a Murut village in Kalimantan, Indonesia to learn the traditional Murut dances and perform in with pride on the day of the launch of the micro-hydro project in kampong Bantul.

Products generated by the project:
(a) Cassava chips; mats, baskets and bracelets.
(b) Unintended by-products: (i) assembly men and few government officials came to visit the village and conduct an educational tour of the project and listening to the explanation of the local community; (ii) a rest-house and rumah adat (house of traditional culture) is in the process of being completed; (iii) even the other villages take kampong Bantul more seriously and at least one or two families have moved into the vacant units in the Bantul longhouse.

Assessment of the impacts of the project in the GEF focal area(s):
The project has empowered the local community and opened windows of opportunities by which the villagers synergizing with outside agencies. The local community is convinced of the conservation of the equatorial forest in their ancestral domain and the preservation of the biodiversity in the water catchment area to ensure that the micro-hydro is sustainable in the long run. In this way, a little remote village has contributed in no small way towards the mitigation of global climatic changes.