Dr Geoffrey Davison has spent all his working life in South-East Asia, as a university lecturer in Malaysia, a conservationist with WWF, and now with the National Parks Board, Singapore. His interests range across ornithology, tropical forest ecology and animal taxonomy. He has written numerous scientific papers as well as books, including the bestselling Naturalist's Guide to the Birds of Malaysia. Melvin Gumal was born in Sarawak and was educated at the University of Melbourne, Australia and the University of Cambridge, England. After heading Sarawak's National Parks and Wildlife Division's Education and Interpretation Unit for 12 years, he is now head of the Malaysia Program for the Wildlife Conservation Society. His current interests are in bats, elephants, Orang- utans, tigers and their habitats. Junaidi Payne has spent the last 21 years living in Sabah, where he works for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). He is thus uniquely placed to describe from first-hand experience in the field the wildlife of Sabah and its current status.

He is especially interested in the ecology and conservation of the region, and in the great rainforests of Borneo. His previous publications include scientific papers and a number of popular reference books, including This is Borneo.