My return to Borneo after ten years shed light on the island’s new normal: dominance of agriculture and development over wilderness, nature, and protected areas. In reality though, this was nothing new- only my understanding of how human expansion impacted areas I visited.
Bornean forests have been disappearing for a long time
Borneo is changed. A hundred years ago it was all rainforest. In the 1960s the island began to experience industrial scale deforestation with a peak in the 1980s. Today one half of the rainforest is gone and continues to vanish at 1.3 million hectares per year. It is expected that only swampy peat and mountain forests unsuitable for farming will survive through the future.
Ten years ago when I saw there was so little Bornean forest left, I imagined advocates and government officials were grabbing hold of the situation. I hoped there was enough international attention on lessons learned that humanity could value national parks as much as oil palm plantations. To protect biodiversity not only for its monetary but intrinsic value.
Idealism in my twenties encouraged hope but I could have predicted we would not stop loosing this 130 million year old forest, which has stood more than twice as long the Amazon. Now, a decade after my first trip to Borneo, many patches of remaining forest I saw have turned to oil palm. It was a short tour, but the forests I visited a few weeks ago were only within the boundaries of national parks, almost completely surrounded by a monoculture oil palm where little biodiversity can survive. This was the new normal it took me so long to realize. Parks and reserves are inevitably the last holdouts our wilderness, and we need to work hard to make them as large and secure as possible.
The perception of oil palm has flipped
One of my best friends is studying solastalgia, which describes a form of psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change. Human adaptability, or short term memory perhaps, has proven more resilient when it came to Bornean industrial plantations replacing tropical forest.
What surprised me was not so much the encroaching plantations, but people’s perception. A decade ago I asked locals of their opinions and I got an overall negative response: Work wasn’t going to Malaysians. Profits were leaving the country. Forests were being clear-cut. Smoke from fires was a health hazard and nuisance. Now in 2018, in some of those same areas, residents have watched a new green jungle grow, and in many cases for most of their adult life.
These areas of Borneo look like a forest, only this new jungle is void of the biodiversity the land once held. Locals say the plantations generate money for state government (editors note: an unconfirmed and unchecked statement). They also view it as a green economy for a sustainable future. To make matters worse, I heard this and much more in a detailed story from a forest ranger while on tour through Sabah.
Returning conservationists rarely have happy tales
My father, a former contadino or subsistence farmer, emigrated to the United States and raised my sister and I very much as naturalists, loving nature and respecting the balance of ecosystems. As news stories played across my adolescence, a common theme repeated of scientists returning to a patch of earth or sea years later to see it logged, polluted, or dead. Rarely was there a broadcast of rebounding wildlife- and if it did come up it was surrounding an urban area that set aggressive regulations to curb emissions. Growing up in New Jersey I always looked forward to success stories like the rebound of the Hudson River.
Conservationists generally have much more tragic stories as they mature through their careers. Whether on land or diving in the ocean, most places I traveled to demonstrated a significant impact from humans over time. The same fate happened to this stretch of forest in Sabah, Borneo, when I returned to ten years later.
Visiting Borneo will support our allies on the ground
There are dozens of parks, reserves, conservation centers, and places where tourism dollars directly support the conservation of countless species. Rehabilitation centers which take in injured or orphaned animals often run on slim margins, but your visit can provide funds to keep them running. The Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre are two famous and easily accessible destinations that have been doing amazing work for decades. I visited both a few weeks ago and both deserve our support.
There are also scores of eco tours and resorts which run on the basic principle of keeping forests and the animals within them safe. You can take non-intrusive river tours, jungle treks, and dive at resorts that invest their proceeds directly into the environment. As always, research through TripAdvisor or other reviewing mechanisms is necessary to learn who keeps sustainable practices. Following rankings and recommendations of organizations like Green Fins is even better as their sole purpose is to promote and safeguard best practices in the industry.
It is with great effort conservationists and international groups are moving to declare zones of high biodiversity and high threat as protected areas to minimize human-wildlife conflict. Supporting these reserves, along with rehabilitation centers, are some of the best chances we have at protecting what is left.
Since you started reading this article an area over the size of five football fields has vanished from Bornean rainforest.
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Giacomo Abrusci
Executive Director, SEVENSEAS Media
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