# Danum Valley — pittas, hornbills and the Bornean bristlehead in the unlogged lowland rainforest of Sabah

Canonical: https://sockmonkey.com/places/danum-valley (this is a plain-text copy of that page)
Source: https://sockmonkey.com/places/danum-valley
Publisher: SockMonkey.com (https://sockmonkey.com)
Part of: The Field Guide - https://sockmonkey.com/places/
Cite as: SockMonkey.com - sockmonkey.com
Last reviewed: 30 October 2026

- **Where:** Upper Segama River, eastern Sabah, Borneo
- **Coordinates:** 4.88° N, 117.75° E (KBA central point)
- **Protection:** Class I (Protection) Forest Reserve, gazetted May 1995
- **Area:** 43,892 ha, (Yayasan Sabah)
- **Birds recorded:** More than 300 species (Yayasan Sabah);, over 275 (KBA, 2004)
- **Best visited:** No month band on the pages read;, drier May–Oct (KBA)
- **Advisory:** Malaysia Level 1

## The short answer

Danum Valley Conservation Area is a protected block of rainforest in the east of Sabah, the Malaysian state on the northern part of Borneo. Yayasan Sabah, the statutory body that manages it, gives its area as 43,892 hectares and calls it one of Sabah’s last strongholds of undisturbed lowland dipterocarp forest: mixed dipterocarp forest covers about 95 per cent of it and mountain forest the rest, the foundation says, though another of its pages gives 90 and 10 per cent. It occupies much of the upper catchment of the Segama River, which forms its eastern and southern boundary, with the Danum River to the north, and its ground runs from about 150 metres above sea level to the summit of Gunung Danum, which the Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet gives as 1,093 metres. The reserve was gazetted as a Class I (Protection) Forest Reserve under Sabah’s Forest Enactment 1968 in May 1995, and the Forest (Danum Valley Conservation Area) Rules 1996 set up the Danum Valley Management Committee, a body of state and federal agencies, universities and WWF-Malaysia that guides Yayasan Sabah’s day-to-day management. On the reserve’s edge is the Danum Valley Studies Centre, formerly the Danum Valley Field Centre, founded in 1986 for research, education, training and wilderness recreation; Yayasan Sabah says it lies 81 kilometres inland by road from Lahad Datu on Sabah’s east coast.

## Why it's worth knowing

Birds of the lowland forest. Yayasan Sabah’s site for the conservation area says more than 300 bird species have been recorded there, including the red-crowned barbet, eight species of pitta, among them the fairy pitta, and all eight species of hornbill found in Borneo. Its figures vary from page to page: the home page gives more than 317 species, which it says is nearly three-quarters of the resident birds of the whole island, and another page says 15 of them are found only on Borneo. The Key Biodiversity Areas Partnership’s factsheet, last assessed in 2004, gives a lower count, over 275 species, and at least nine endemic species, citing a 1993 study; it singles out three that depend on unlogged forest, the black-throated wren-babbler, the Bornean wren-babbler and the Bornean blue flycatcher, and says every hornbill species in Sabah is present. Its species list includes the Bornean bristlehead, the blue-headed and giant pittas, Bulwer’s pheasant, the great argus, Wallace’s hawk-eagle and Storm’s stork, which it lists as endangered. The difference between the counts is one of date and source; neither page explains it, and we have not chosen between them.

A forest that was kept. Much of the forest around Danum Valley was logged: Yayasan Sabah’s management plan summary describes its buffer zones, under the Ulu Segama Malua initiative, as mainly logged-over forest. The Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet names logging and its effects on wildlife, forest fires in droughts, and hunting and the gathering of forest produce through logging roads among the threats to the site, and, as of its 2004 assessment, records the conversion of surrounding forest to plantations on the reserve’s western side as a grave threat. In 2019 Dr Glen Reynolds of the Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership, who oversees much of the research at Danum, said that over the previous decade the Sabah Forestry Department had progressively extended protection to several hundred thousand hectares of forest around the conservation area, which was by then buffered on all sides by totally protected areas. The foundation’s site lists more than 120 species of mammals there, including ten primates, among them the orangutan; its other large mammals include the Bornean pygmy elephant, the banteng, the Malayan sun bear and the clouded leopard.

## The field notes

### Set aside by its owners

Danum Valley was once part of a 972,000-hectare forest concession assigned to Yayasan Sabah, a statutory body set up in 1966 to improve the lives of Malaysians in Sabah. In 1980, the foundation says, its Board of Trustees voluntarily designated Danum Valley as an entirely unlogged area for conservation, and the area became the Danum Valley Conservation Area. Its legal protection came in May 1995, when it was gazetted as a Class I (Protection) Forest Reserve. The management objectives in the Forest (Danum Valley Conservation Area) Rules 1996, as Yayasan Sabah quotes them, are, in this order, the protection of biological diversity, research, education and training, and recreation and nature tourism, the last provided it does not significantly compromise the others. The foundation’s figures for the reserve’s size differ in form: 43,892 hectares on one page, 438 square kilometres on another. The Key Biodiversity Areas Partnership maps a far larger site, 2,331 square kilometres; its factsheet does not say what that boundary takes in beyond the reserve.

### A station in the trees

A long-term research programme between the Danum Valley Management Committee and the Royal Society of the United Kingdom began in 1984, and the field centre opened in 1986. Yayasan Sabah says 534 research projects have been completed or are under way there, many of them joint work between Malaysian and overseas scientists, and counts Danum among the three leading rainforest research centres in the world with La Selva in Costa Rica and Barro Colorado Island in Panama. The studies centre has laboratories, a library, a 40-metre canopy observation platform and a 10-metre observation tower on its self-guided nature trail, a 500-metre loop with numbered posts and labelled trees, and more than 50 kilometres of other marked trails, the foundation says. Its activity list for visitors includes guided walks to the Tembaling waterfall, birdwatching, a canopy platform, night walks and night drives.

### The tallest tree yet measured

In 2018 researchers led by Dr Doreen Boyd of the University of Nottingham picked out a very tall tree in airborne laser survey data from Sabah’s forests, and scientists from the University of Oxford and the Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership walked in to scan it in three dimensions and fly a drone over it. It is a yellow meranti, Shorea faguetiana, in the Danum Valley Conservation Area, which the university says also held the previous record for the tallest tree; the team named it Menara, Malay for “tower”. In January 2019 Unding Jami of the research partnership climbed it with a tape measure. “It was a scary climb, so windy, because the nearest trees are very distant,” he told the university. The 2019 paper describing the tree gives 100.8 metres to the lowest part of the buttress and 98.90 metres to the lowest part of the trunk; the university put its weight, without the roots, at 81,500 kilograms, 95 per cent of it in the trunk. The Sabah Tourism Board also gives 100.8 metres; Yayasan Sabah’s site gives 101.8.

### Burial sites

There are graves in the forest. The Sabah Tourism Board says three burial sites, with belian coffins and porcelain spirit jars, have been found in the Danum Valley area: two near the field centre and a third beneath a cliff that overlooks the Borneo Rainforest Lodge. Yayasan Sabah lists a half-day guided walk to a burial site among the studies centre’s activities. The pages we read do not say who was buried there or when, and we do not guess.

**The Relic**

Menara, the tallest tropical tree yet measured. A yellow meranti, Shorea faguetiana, in the Danum Valley Conservation Area, picked out in airborne laser data in 2018 by researchers from the University of Nottingham and named Menara, Malay for “tower”. In January 2019 Unding Jami of the Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership climbed it with a tape. The scientists’ 2019 paper gives 100.8 metres to the lowest part of the buttress, 98.90 metres to the lowest part of the trunk and 96.26 metres to the highest point of the trunk’s base; the university says it stands on sloping ground in a sheltered valley. Yayasan Sabah’s site gives 101.8 metres. The pages we read do not say whether visitors are taken to it.

## Getting there

How to get there. Yayasan Sabah says the field centre is 81 kilometres inland from Lahad Datu, a town on Sabah’s east coast, about two hours by road: the first 15 kilometres follow the main Lahad Datu to Tawau road, and the remaining 66 are an unsealed but well-maintained private logging road, which 70-ton logging trucks also use, so the foundation asks drivers to go slowly and carefully. Drivers show a gate pass at the checkpoint at kilometre 5.5 of the Main Line West logging road and turn left at the signposted junction at kilometre 56.5 for the last 10 kilometres. Lahad Datu has an airport with flights from Kota Kinabalu, and can also be reached by road from Tawau or Sandakan, the conservation area’s site says; Yayasan Sabah offers scheduled and private transfers from Lahad Datu. Its older conservation-areas site lists a Monday, Wednesday and Friday transfer; the newer one gives no days. Two places to stay offer public access, according to the Sabah Tourism Board: the Borneo Rainforest Lodge, a lodge beside the Danum River that opened in July 1994, and the Danum Valley Studies Centre, with chalets, resthouse rooms and a hostel, once reserved for researchers and now open to visitors.

When to go. The official pages read for this entry give no best month for birds. The Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet describes a wetter period under the north-east monsoon, December to March, and a drier one under the south-east monsoon, May to October, with rainfall of 2,000 to 3,300 millimetres a year. Yayasan Sabah’s management plan summary gives an average of 2,776 millimetres and a mean daily temperature of 27°C.

What to arrange ahead. Every visitor needs an entry permit, bought at the Danum Valley sales office in Lahad Datu, Yayasan Sabah says; that is the conservation area’s ordinary admission. Anyone driving their own vehicle also needs a gate pass from the same office. The Sabah Tourism Board says permissions, transport and rooms must be arranged before you go, that only vehicles registered with a permit are let in, and that stays run from three days and two nights to five days and four nights, booked with the operator of each lodge or through licensed tour operators. Fees are not published on the foundation’s pages; it gives them on request. Its conditions of entry require insurance that covers emergency helicopter evacuation. Separate permits from the Danum Valley Management Committee are needed for research, for flying a drone and for commercial or professional filming and photography.

Access. Yayasan Sabah’s conditions of entry say visitors must report to the manager of the conservation area on arrival and declare their cameras, and must be accompanied by a ranger when they enter the forest, except on the designated self-guided nature trails. Anyone walking a trail without a ranger is asked to write their name on the notice board and stay on the trails. Hunting, firearms and the collection of specimens without written permission are forbidden; polystyrene containers and canned food may not be brought in, and all litter must be carried out. The studies centre has emergency VHF radio, a first aid kit and a helipad for evacuations, the foundation says.

Safety. The US State Department has Malaysia at Level 1, exercise normal precautions (advisory dated 22 February 2026), and calls it generally a safe destination for travellers. It asks for increased caution on the islands and in the maritime areas off the coast of eastern Sabah, from Kudat in the north to Tawau in the south, because of the risk of kidnapping. Danum Valley is on the mainland: Yayasan Sabah gives the field centre’s distance as 81 kilometres by road inland from Lahad Datu.

## Common questions

#### What birds is Danum Valley known for?

Yayasan Sabah says more than 300 bird species have been recorded in the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, Malaysia, including the red-crowned barbet, eight species of pitta such as the fairy pitta, and all eight hornbill species found in Borneo. The Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet for the site also lists the Bornean bristlehead.

#### How many bird species have been recorded at Danum Valley?

The counts differ by source. Yayasan Sabah, which manages the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, gives more than 300 species on one page and more than 317, nearly three-quarters of Borneo’s resident birds, on another. The Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet, last assessed in 2004, gives over 275.

#### Do you need a permit to visit Danum Valley?

Yes. Yayasan Sabah says every visitor to the Danum Valley Conservation Area needs an entry permit from its sales office in Lahad Datu, Sabah, the area’s ordinary admission; drivers also need a gate pass. Research, drone flights and professional filming need separate permits from the Danum Valley Management Committee.

#### How do you get to Danum Valley?

Yayasan Sabah says its Danum Valley field centre is 81 kilometres inland from Lahad Datu on Sabah’s east coast, about two hours by road: 15 kilometres of the Lahad Datu to Tawau road, then 66 kilometres of unsealed logging road used by 70-ton logging trucks. Lahad Datu has flights from Kota Kinabalu.

#### Where is the tallest tropical tree in the world?

Menara, a yellow meranti (Shorea faguetiana) in the Danum Valley Conservation Area in Sabah, Malaysia, was measured by tape in January 2019 at 100.8 metres to the lowest part of its buttress, according to the scientists who described it. Yayasan Sabah’s site gives 101.8 metres.

#### Why was Danum Valley not logged?

Danum Valley in Sabah was part of a 972,000-hectare forest concession assigned to Yayasan Sabah, and in 1980 the foundation’s Board of Trustees voluntarily designated it an entirely unlogged area for conservation, the foundation says. It was gazetted as a Class I (Protection) Forest Reserve in May 1995.

#### When is the best time to visit Danum Valley?

The official pages read give no best month. The Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet for Danum Valley in Sabah describes a wetter north-east monsoon from December to March and a drier south-east monsoon from May to October, with 2,000 to 3,300 millimetres of rain a year.

#### Is Danum Valley safe to visit?

The US State Department has Malaysia at Level 1 (22 February 2026), with increased caution for the islands and maritime areas off eastern Sabah from Kudat to Tawau. Danum Valley is inland, 81 kilometres by road from Lahad Datu, and Yayasan Sabah requires visitors to carry insurance that covers helicopter evacuation.

What to pack: the Rainforest & reef kit, forest, caves and waterfall trails

## Related places

Gunung Muluabout 340 km away · both tagged rainforest
Kampong Ayerabout 310 km away · same region
El Nidoabout 720 km away · same region
Côn Đảosame region · same access level (2)
Ifugao Rice Terracessame region · same access level (2)

Notes on sources. Yayasan Sabah’s site for the conservation area (danumvalley.my: home, about, services and management pages, and its posts “Rainforest Adventures” and “Visitors Guidelines”), read directly on 29 October 2026, supplied the area, the forest types, the 1966 foundation and the 972,000-hectare concession, the 1980 trustees’ decision, the May 1995 gazettement, the 1996 Rules and their objectives, the management committee’s members, the buffer zones, the studies centre’s former name, founding and research count, its comparison with La Selva and Barro Colorado, the bird figures (more than 300; more than 317; 15 found only on Borneo; eight pittas; eight hornbills; the red-crowned barbet), the mammal list, the boundaries and elevations, the rainfall and temperature of the management plan summary, the Lahad Datu airport and road routes, the transfers, the welcome to naturalists and the 101.8-metre height. Its Conservation and Environmental Management Division’s site (borneoforestheritage.org.my: the Danum Valley, entry permit, visitor information, facilities, functions, management committee, drone and filming pages) supplied the 81-kilometre road, its sections and checkpoint, the logging trucks, the entry permit and gate pass, the conditions of entry, the notice board, the trails, platform and tower, the activities, the communications and helipad, the Monday, Wednesday and Friday transfer and the separate permits; its fees are given only on request. That site’s entry-permit page also names an airline serving Lahad Datu that we could not confirm, so no airline is named here, and its visitor-information page lists visitor categories for the field centre that the newer pages and the Sabah Tourism Board supersede. The Sabah Tourism Board’s page for the conservation area (sabahtourism.com) supplied the two facilities with public access, the studies centre’s opening to visitors, the arrangements and package lengths, the burial sites and the 100.8-metre height. The Borneo Rainforest Lodge’s July 1994 opening is from the management plan summary on danumvalley.my. The Key Biodiversity Areas Partnership’s factsheet for Danum Valley Conservation Area, site 16012, and its assessment page (keybiodiversityareas.org) supplied the central coordinates, the 2,331-square-kilometre mapped site, the 2004 assessment, Gunung Danum’s height, the monsoons and rainfall, the bird count, endemics and species list, and the threats. The University of Nottingham’s press release of April 2019 supplied Menara’s discovery, name, climb, the climber’s words, the previous record, the weight, the sloping ground and Dr Glen Reynolds’s statement on the surrounding protected forest; the paper by Shenkin and others, “The World’s Tallest Tropical Tree in Three Dimensions”, Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, 2019, supplied the three tape heights. The US State Department’s advisory feed supplied Malaysia’s level, date and the eastern Sabah caution; its full advisory page refused our request. Left out: the Sumatran rhinoceros, which older Yayasan Sabah and Key Biodiversity Areas text lists as present in Danum, because we read no current official statement of its status there. The coordinates are the Key Biodiversity Areas factsheet’s central point. Checked 29 October 2026. Written and fact-checked by SockMonkey.com. Last reviewed 30 October 2026.