A British survey indicates climate change is affecting tropical insects on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, the third largest island in the world. University of York researchers repeated a 1965 survey of species of moths living on the mountain and discovered they have moved uphill by about 220 feet during the intervening years to cope with changes in climate. I-Ching Chen, first author of the study, said the findings represent the first demonstration that climate change is affecting the distributions of tropical insects -- the most numerous group of animals on Earth -- and thus represents a major threat to global biodiversity. Large numbers of species are completely confined to tropical mountains, such as Mount Kinabalu (and) many of the species found by the expeditions have never been found anywhere else on Earth, said Professor Chris Thomas, who led the study.

When three undergraduates set off on an expedition in 1965 to trap moths on Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, little did they realize that they were establishing the groundwork for a study of the impacts of climate change.

M ost people who know the place like to call it "Asia's best kept secret". But the secret is slowly getting out about Kota Kinabalu, in Sabah province of Malaysian Borneo.

Ever since I moved to Asia in the early 1990s, the rain forest-rich island of Borneo has held a special allure. It's one of the last sanctuaries of biodiversity [new animal and plant species are still being discovered there] in a world getting more cemented-over with each passing year.

By SHN ROSS THE only surviving specimens of one of the world's rarest plants have gone on display after cuttings taken from a Malaysian mountain by Scots scientists more than a decade ago flourished while the flower died out in its native habitat.