‘Meet the Scientist’ is a short feature series in which we get to know the people behind the work done at Borneo Futures – who they are, where they came from, and where they are going. The voices of young and junior scientists are often lost in a sector often dominated by big names and institutions. This series aims to give back the voice to the changemakers of tomorrow and showcase the hard work they do to make Borneo Futures what it is today.

In this edition of Meet the Scientist, I spoke to Syafiie, one of our biodiversity research officers. Having joined Borneo Futures in early 2024 as a biodiversity apprentice, Syafiie has now held a full-time position at the company for just over two years. His role has evolved to include a wide range of responsibilities, from overseeing the verification of our citizen science and community-based biodiversity monitoring observations to data cleaning and management. He has also become a published scientist through his work on both our KehatiKu and PENDAKI programmes.

Despite his extensive experience in biodiversity research, Syafiie initially had other plans for his career. While at school, he had always hoped to study medical science, focusing either on surgery or public health. Funnily enough, he isn’t the only member of our team with such aspirations – conservation science seems to call to a specific kind of person.

I asked him how this change in trajectory came about. He told me about his roots, and the forest-edge kampung where he grew up and still lives today. Being raised in such an environment placed nature connection as a central component of his childhood. He knew the animals and plants of his forest playground, and the constant exposure to the natural world meant it always has and always will be something very important to him.

When he finished school, Syafiie chose to study biology at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. In his final year, he studied bat ecology under Professor Ulmar Grafe, who later hired Syafiie as a research assistant at UBD. This experience taught him about camera trapping, audio recording, and species research. It was through Prof. Ulmar and this position that Syafiie found Borneo Futures, when he attended an internal seminar presented by Director Erik Meijaard.

When he first started working for Borneo Futures, Syafiie was focused on the PENDAKI citizen science programme. Gradually, as he took on more responsibilities, he worked on KehatiKu and is now taking a lead on the Borneo Futures collaboration with HUTAN.  When asked how he feels about his position, he told me:

“I really like how it has evolved. [The work] is never static; there is always something going on and new things happening. I also really appreciate the interdisciplinary team. It’s really interesting to learn from each other, and I have developed a lot of new skills, like mapping and communications strategy, from other members of the team.”

He highlights the value of this interdisciplinary team again, noting that it has supported him in developing many transferable skills for future work, particularly in AI acoustic-detection pipeline, communications, and mapping species distributions and statistics.

Syafiie, like many other members of our team, recognizes that Borneo Futures provides a unique opportunity in Brunei to work in a niche field. “I feel fortunate to work in a field related to what I studied at university. That’s not something everyone gets to do.” Because of this, he is content with remaining at the company for the foreseeable future, telling me that he “prefers to go with the flow and live one day at a time.”

Ultimately, his goal is to make meaningful changes to people’s lives. He is very proud of the progress he has seen with the KehatiKu project and greatly appreciates the tangible impact he observes when visiting villages where KehatiKu has been adopted. He acknowledges that this is a really difficult project to implement, but they have succeeded.

“It’s great to have positive feedback from villagers during site visits. It’s very fulfilling to see that they can now send their kids to school and buy stuff they need. [I feel that] we are making a real change.”

Moving forward, Syafiie is excited to explore the next phase of Borneo Futures. He believes that we can expand our methods to other countries in Asia and, eventually, Europe, with increased collaboration with the private sector. If we manage, it could mean great things for the company, the people we work with, and his colleagues who, alongside him, make our work possible.