Our vision is to ensure that globally threatened large mammal species in Malaysia aresafeguarded through management interventions that support the conservation andrestoration of their habitats and the recovery of their populations.
We will act to identify small, fragmented or declining populations of globallythreatened large mammals, and work on habitat enrichment, habitat connectivity and othermanagement interventions to reverse such population declines.
We will work with partners and supporters in the implementation of specific andcustomized priority programmes to recover and manage globally threatened large mammalspecies and their habitats in Malaysia. We will apply our expertise in the provision ofinterventions that support sustainability in nutrition, reproduction and demography of globallythreatened large mammals in Malaysia.
John Payne started his working life with two powerful lessons. In 1976, one of the biggest mast fruiting years occurred in Peninsular Malaysia. The lesson was: population density of rare animal species is determined by the years with the least leaf and fruit production. Years with lots of fruits, and every fruiting season, are anomalies that support enhanced reproduction, the results of which plummet during very wet or very dry years. In 1977, he joined an expedition to survey for Sumatran rhinos in the proposed Endau-Rompin Park. He saw that people were tempted to record tapir footprints as rhino footprints. Lesson: people believe what they want to believe, not what is true. A different but similar lesson: if your only tool is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. After many such lessons learned up to the extinction of the Hairy rhinoceros in Malaysia in 2019, he turned BORA to become an NGO that focuses on recovery of endangered and rare species - by whatever ethical means are available.
Dr Zainal Zahari Zainuddin started off towards being an accountant, but switched to veterinary medicine, joining the Malaysian Department of Wildlife and National Parks in 1985. Since then, he has developed expertise in surveying, capture, translocation, husbandry and breeding of Malayan tiger, elephant, Hairy rhinoceros, Malayan seladang, Malay tapir and Bornen banteng. After the death of the last rhinos in Malaysia, due to age-related pathologies, he switched and has since developed expertise in breeding of native plants, with an emphasis on the genus Ficus. Together with BORA staff at Tabin Wildlife Reserve, he has developed the Sabah Ficus Germplasm Centre.