Who is Mike?

July 19, 1943–January 12, 2023

Michael (Mike) Meredith

Mike was a truly remarkable person and a unique character in the development of conservation science in Southeast Asia and ecological statistics globally. Here we want to honor his life and his contributions to the field. Mike came to the field in a very non-traditional way. During the last 20 years he was largely responsible for development of quantitative training in Southeast Asia and developed an international reputation for his work with a variety of R packages and programming languages. Essentially self-taught, he achieved an understanding in much of ecological statistics that sometimes rivaled that of leaders in the field. Without ever wanting to be visible, his contributions to some major scientific projects are HUGE.

For instance, for two Applied hierarchical modeling in Ecology books (Kéry & Royle, AP, 2016 & 2021), Mike helped us so much that we offered him co-authorship. But in his inimitable modesty, he simply commented that he preferred to remain in the background as “the grease monkey” that helped things to work properly. His contributions to these two books and also to our integrated population models book (Schaub & Kéry, AP, 2022) are very substantial, and he wrote two R packages for them. Mike helped countless scientists with active, computational work, for example, by setting up or even running simulations that became the heart of publications that these scientists produced, without Mike ever appearing as a co-author, exactly as he had wished. If co-authorships had been anything that mattered to Mike, he’d have a couple of dozen highly respectable papers on his CV, and at least 2 or 3 books.

Who We Are?

MMT, its genesis and current focus

After Mike’s passing, Dr Melvin Gumal, Dr Ngumbang Juat and Mr Oswald Braken, were entrusted as Executors of his Sarawakian Will and Estate. The funds from the legally recognised Will were to perpetuate the work of the Mike Meredith Trust (MMT).

Mike co-drafted the Memorandum of Articles for the Mike Meredith Trust with his co-Trustees, Melvin, Ngumbang and Braken. The work of the Trustees is to implement the articles stipulated in the Trust, and the main focus was and is to support the continued education of conservationists in Asia. As can be seen from the past-recipients list, this ranged from conservationists in Hong Kong to those in Nepal, with a heavy clustering of students from Southeast Asia.

MMT generally supports students enrolled in one-year MSc, MPhil or MRes programmes at prominent universities. The Trust will also support PhDs in certain instances. For PhDs, MMT will discuss with potential applicants who their chosen supervisors would be, their topics of research and may visit the University for a face-to-face discussion.

Mike personally visited the various universities numerous times and this practice will be continued as part of Mike’s legacy.

MMT will support topics linked to Mike’s area of interest and this ranges from wildlife biology, social science linked with conservation, biostatistics, current conservation issues and policies, as well as technologies used for expanding the efficacy of wildlife surveys.

The Trust also encourages students to look for supplementary funding where available.

MMT encourages applicants to attend the “BootCamp” organised by Biodiversity Conservation Society of Sarawak, an NGO initiated by Mike himself with support from Melvin and Ngumbang in 2008, and in latter years, Braken when he became a Division head at Sarawak Forestry Corporation. The Bootcamps officially commenced in 2009 with a hiatus between 2020 to 2023. The Bootcamps have since re-started with programmes in Sarawak, Peninsular Malaysia and Myanmar, headed by Ngumbang with his current crop of helpers, akin to what Mike had done when he personally headed the Bootcamp programmes.

Current Trustees of MMT

The Trustees

All the three trustees, i.e. Melvin Gumal, Ngumbang Juat and Oswald Braken serve on the MMT on a voluntary basis.

Braken had known Mike the longest and this friendship commenced in 1987. Braken became friends with Mike after serving as the head of Miri’s National Parks and Wildlife Office. The Miri Office was in charge of Mulu National Park, of which Mike was Program Development Officer. Braken is a prominent conservationist who worked in the state civil service (National Parks and Wildlife Office of Sarawak Forest Department and subsequently at Sarawak Forestry Corporation) from 1987 – 2022.

Melvin has known Mike since 1988 and worked with him in the National Parks and Wildlife Office between the years of 1988-2001 and subsequently in Wildlife Conservation Society between 2002-2007. Thereafter, Melvin supported the work of the Bootcamps by providing trainers (WCS staff) to help Mike expand the Bootcamp programme from Sarawak to Southeast Asia and beyond. Melvin would have regular monthly ‘laksa days” with Mike to discuss current issues in conservation and the best approaches to training of future conservationists.

Ngumbang has been Mike’s protege since 2012 learning all the analytical skills in terms of coding to advanced modelling. Ngumbang’s children call “Aki Mike” as Mike is fondly remembered as a grandfather to them. Ngumbang continues to expand Mike’s work on wildlife data analyses and is a “grease monkey” in his own right, a term Mike often used when doing the background work in solving data analysis issues.