At the edge of Temenggor Lake in Hulu Perak, the boat laden with food provisions for a night and two days’ stay is ready to depart the jetty. Yeap Chin Aik, hornbill conservation officer from the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) glances at his watch and looks northwards. Two of his Hornbill Guardians have yet to appear. Their village – Kampung Sungai Tiang – lies deep within the Royal Belum State Park. We only hope they have not forgotten this afternoon’s rendezvous.

From the floating pontoon at the jetty, I catch sight of the lush forest complex – almost 320,000 hectares of tropical forest – Royal Belum State Park lies north of the East-West Highway and Temengor Forest Reserve to its south. Together with southern Thailand’s national parks, they form one of the largest contiguous expanse of forest with rich flora and fauna biodiversity. Bird life in particular.

Yeap has been studying hornbills in the Belum-Temengor Forest Complex since 2004 with the aim of promoting the conservation of wild hornbills and increase the awareness of hornbills as seed dispersals in our forests. Five Jahai and a Temiar – are the Hornbill Guardians – and helping Yeap monitor the movements of these magnificent hornbills.

For the next two days, they will exchange binoculars for compact cameras, SLRs and a video camera to learn basic photography and video skills to improve their hornbill documentation.

When the latecomers finally arrive by boat, we join Roslan Carang another Hornbill Guardian in his boat and set off for Kampung Chuweh Baru, about a half hour’s journey away.