BORNEO, West Kalimantan
Borneo is the third largest island in the world, (FYI Sumatra is the 6th largest). Borneo has some 3,000 species of tress, 2,000 species of orchids and 1,000 species of ferns. Kalimantan province is the richest of all the Sundaic islands for plants, both in terms of total species richness and diversity. It supports the largest expanse of tropical rain forest in the Indomalayan realm. It is the main centre for the distribution of Malaysian flora and Indomalayan fauna making it a major centre for plant diversity. It has some 10,000 to 15,000 species of flowering plants in total along with, 420 species of resident birds, 222 mammals, 166 snakes, as well as 13 species of primates. In fact, Orang Utans only live on the islands of Borneo (80%) and Sumatra (20%), now where else in the world and West Kalimantan has some 8% of the worlds population equivalent to roughly 7,500 primates. Other charismatic mammals in Kalimantan include the Asian Elephant, Proboscis Monkey, Bornean Gibbon, Clouded Leopard and the Sun Bear. FYI, all these animals are listed as endangered and have been placed on the IUCN red list of threatened animals and in the last decades, the Sumatran Rhinoceros has disappeared and may now be extinct in Borneo. Why, because these animals require large home ranges to obtain their living resources. These ranges are disappearing each year at a very high and completely unsustainable rate because of our needs, or perhaps, due to the ignorant way we meet/source our needs.
Arriving off the ferry boat, Joseph from the local office picked me up and we drove to the small town of Ketapang where the office was located. I soon found out that I was goi
ng to be doing voluntary work for FFI Fanua & Flora International of the UK. One of the longest standing and respected NGO's in the field of conservation. Bonus. Get right in with the Pros that's what i thought. I met all the people from the office and very friendly and welcoming they were. The two key areas of activity that FFI in Borneo focus on is Bat research and a socio-economic programme with the local indigenous people. When in the office i slept there, it's like a large house converted into an office with a kitchen and bathroom. Other colleagues slept there too. And when in the field i slept and ate what my local colleagues did.
The rain forests here are one of the purest untouched in the world, much like the amazon in Latin America. Home to some of the oldest (400yrs old) and most valuab
le (both in commercial and conservation terms) trees in the world sch as the Dipterocarpaceae tree reaching some 65m high into the canopy. However there is a huge problem here in the world today. I will explain as best i can but first one must understand although Indonesia is a very big country and a country with enormous natural resources such as timber it is also a very poor country. Its easy to judge too quickly. On the one hand the national parks and non-park forested areas are too large to protect and conserve with manpower. It just costs too mu
ch and the value of the forests may not be properly understood. To make things worse, the government, both national and local are one off the most corrupt in the world so it only serves to make matters worse. What happens is as follows. First the most valuable timber is extracted illegally by the logging companies. Once these roads into the forest have been made, the smaller timber and some valuable wildlife is taken, such as primates for onwards sale. Thereafter an oil palm company will submit a request to slash and burn the now considerably less valuable forest with the objective of making an oil palm plantation. But that's not the end. Oil palms take five year
s to produce their first harvest however the rain forest soil is actually poor in nutrients due to its sallow ground, perhaps half a metres. All the trees roots grow out horizontally as opposed to vertically. The nutrients within the soil come mainly from the continual falling of leaves and other vegetation and animal matter that in turn decompose naturally. Without this natural process the forest floor is only nutrient rich for a max of two years. Due to the nature of the oil plantations requiring more nutrients man made chemical fertilisers are used throughout to aide the harvest. The overflow of these toxic chemicals in turn flow into the rivers and contaminate the food chain (fish etc), leading to the further increased degradation of the environment. (the pics taken form a plane show first a natural forest having been cleared the second the oil plantations in place of the forest)
Well, our driver drove us as near as he could to the outskirts of the forest then we started walking. We walked for five hours into the rain forest with our backpacks, crossing rivers and streams, climbing over and under logs. One sad sight along the way was the large piles of timber illegally extracted from the forest. We had walked for three hours deep into the j
ungle and i could still hear the chainsaws ferociously busy, an awful sound when i was in such pure nature. My heart just saddened.Finally we got to the forest rangers station which was to be our home for the next week. I was very fortunate, no tourists are allowed here, only conservationists and the park rangers. I shared a very basic hut (see pic) with Matt, just on the edge of the stream. The river water was so clean we used it to refill our drinking bottles each day (no stomach upsets), we cooked with it, we washed in it and when i did the little fish ate away at all the dead skin on my feet. It gave a funny tingling sensation. (I later saw in KL people pay money for this cleaning in shopping malls).
Bat Research
the UK and Sepe from the local office were my teachers, the forest rangers being our local guides. We patrolled the immediate forest within an hours radius of the research centre (rangers station) walking along the same tracks used by the local indigenous forest people. We were looking for clear trails that high foliage on either side to lay our large Harp bat nets. Bats fly out and forage for food at dawn and dusk only, they often use the same trails made by the tribal people to get around the forest. We would set up six or seven bat nets during the day, 50m apart along our chosen trails. Then around 8pm and 7am we would go back to the nets
and collect any bats caught. Place them each in individual cotton bags and bring back to the station for analysis. Their species, gender, calls, size, weight would all be meticulously recorded by the team with the aim of collating this information in to a database that will later be used for two purposes. A document is compiled with this and other information, one for a potential donor to further contribute funds to the work being done. And secondly, a second report is complied and submitted to the government in Jakarta with a request to preserve and save this particular area of rain forest due to its high biodiversity value. This is the final objective as to why all this work is done. Both progress and success is slow but this work must be done otherwise it will literally be generations before this primary forest is ever to be the same again. If ever! It was the first time this work had been carried out in West Kalimantan by any NGO and the initial research results were very positive. We caught some 10 species of bats and some 100 individual bats during our time there. Later back in the office i read the 90 page report being produced by the team and discussed the use of a Management Summary. I explained the concept and having read the full report they agreed to me going ahead and compiling a summary which i did. Once I'd completed the three pager doc the team reviewed it. It is now been used to help sell/position the work being Now its a wait and see with some additional lobbying to be done by the team to the government and donors.
Today, the large multinationals are still not that concerned with their suppliers being sustainable. Meaning, there is still little regard today as to the source of oil palm, how it has been produced. What sacrifices, legal or illegal have taken place to produce this oil. I write this because its important. I realise that one key way to get things changed in this world is through education to us the consumer and us acting/voting with our dollar. Ideally there should be a certification system within the EU and US, whereby independent conservation auditors validate the source and the suppliers. Much like one has today with financial auditors validating the finances of a comp
any that are later inserted into the annual report. With the certification and clear labelling of sustainably sourced products, us the consumer would be fully aware and there could be some form of tax penalisation (higher price) for the products and their respective companies that continue to ignore a sustainable certification process. Or, these products might just not be allowed to be sold in our markets. That would also help send the right message to the corporation. It has to come from us though, the consumer. They won't change!Socio-economic programme
Later in the month i went out on another field trip with another team. Their objective was to better understand the current boundaries of the forest in relation to the surrounding villages. Clearly understand their key issues to survival, their current resources of income and how we are able at the practical level to improve the quality of their lives. Traditional local communities inhabiting the area earn most of their income principally from revenue from rubber sales (50%), logging (15%), or working as employees in the oil palm plantation. The balance or ratio of how income is earned is changing however, with fewer and fewer commercial timber now available and with Oil palm plots now maturing, local people are staying where they are but the land has changed, from primary rain forest to oil palm fields stretching as far as the eye can see (from a plane window). Apart from working to generate cash income, the local Dayak communities are commonly engaged in a range of traditional activities to satisfy their daily needs such as growing rice, fruit and vegetables, collecting other non timber forest products, and catching fish in the rivers and streams and hunting pigs, deer and other wild animals. Of course there is the issue of forest encroachment but that must be taken in consideration and balance with the needs of the local rural people. We stayed in the village chiefs house in Sungai Putri, 30 km from our office in Ketapang from where we worked with the local guides to map out the boundaries of the village and its adjoining farmland. we also captured the key down issues they had, whether it be a broken dam that used to block the sea from coming inland and now threatened some of their land or whether it was a lack of knowledge or land or whatever the issue might be. In fact, separate consultation talks were held with the villagers to better understand the issues and so being able to better target financial and other resources. It was very tough work, walking in the 40C heat, walking around the villages and surrounding fields to map out with a GPS the exact lay of the land.
Carbon Credits
I must mention another key motivation why the villages are working with us aside from receiving some direct practical resource. There is one key, new aspect that i quickly learnt about which is a way to protect the forest while provide direct financial resources to these villages whilst allowing corporations to operate. It's called Carbon credits. A tract of rain forest holds millions of cubic tons of carbon in its soil. Carbon taken from the atmosphere by the trees and held in the soil. If this tract of land is slashed and burned the equivalent of this amount carbon held in the soil is realised into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, which further exacerbates the green house effect and the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. It is one reason why Indonesia is the 3rd largest polluter in the world after the US. With guidance of the Kyoto protocol both companies and countries are having to be increasingly aware of how much they pollute (their carbon footprint) for fear of being fined. So if company X wants to set up shop in Indonesia to produce whatever, it will also produce a carbon footprint - pollution. Its inevitable however small. To avoid being fined either by the government of Jakarta or by its origin country it pays an amount of money annually to Jakarta to be allowed to pollute (its not perfect i know but hey the world isn't right now). This money is then directed annually to the villages surrounding that specific piece of forest with the agreement from the villagers of saving that particular piece of land for the carbon it holds. The scheme is starting to take off, hopefully with all stakeholders being satisfied. I don't know how long this system can or will work, it may take off and flourish. However it's definitely a step in the right direction to think more laterally to solve some of the big problems our generation has inherited in the world today and allow our children to see and experience what i have been fortunate to have experienced.
My time and work in Borneo felt so right. I stopped travelling, stayed in one place. Learnt so many new things and hopefully also gave back what i could with my knowledge hard work and spirit. I found the experience of giving so rewarding, it made me happy. I also taught English twice a day when i was in the office to a young boy working there called Ripin. Later i met his headmaster and agreed to give his the students of his school a talk on why its so important to learn English in the world today as a door to open and look for new opportunities.
I would like to personally thank all the team for their time, support and generosity, for letting me be apart of their team and their work. Thank you Asep, Sephy, Joseph, Mary, Adek, Adji, Emma, Matt, Tiga, Gustina and Ripin.
(Sorry this video was filmed horizontally)
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