Click on this map to see Borneo's location in South East Asia (map courtesy National Geographic)

The Island of Borneo

Borneo is a large island in Southeast Asia that comprises Malaysia, Indonesia, and the sultanate of Brunei. The Indonesian part of Borneo comprises the southern two-thirds of the island's area and is divided into the four provinces of West, Central, South and East Kalimantan. The Malaysian part comprises the northern coast and is divided into the states of Sarawak and Sabah. The tiny nation of Brunei is wedged between these two Malaysian states.

Borneo is the third largest island in the world, after Greenland and New Guinea. Its population is roughly 16 million, of whom 12 million reside in Indonesia (Kalimantan) and 4 million reside in Sarawak and Sabah. Brunei's population is 300,000. The island's hilly terrain, unnavigable rivers, and thick forests deterred industrial development until recently, and as a result Borneo's population is comparatively low. By comparison, the neighboring island of Java - with an area 1/5th that of Borneo's - is home to over 16 times as many people (130 million).

Borneo is home to the world's oldest tropical rainforests which, until a few decades ago, completely covered the island. Among the planet's most biologically diverse ecosystems, these forests are home to thousands of endemic animal, reptile, insect and plant species as well as orangutans, rhinos, hornbills, macaques, gibbons, tarsiers, and slow loris. For countless generations, Borneo's indigenous Dayak subsistence farmers and hunter-gatherers depended upon and sustainably managed these forests as their primary source of livelihood. Under their stewardship, the forests were able to maintain the highest species diversity of any terrestrial ecosystem, supplying food, medicines, cash crops and building materials. This has changed dramatically with the advent of industrial logging and monoculture African oil palm plantations.

A Brief Overview of Borneo's Human History

There is evidence of human habitation on Borneo for over 50,000 years, with continuous occupation until 250 BCE. Four thousand years ago, the Proto Malay arrived via the Malay peninsula and populated the western Malay archipelago, Indonesia and the Philippines. The Proto-Malay were the ancestors to Borneo's diverse peoples today known collectively as Dayaks, and each Dayak society developed in adaptation to its particular environment. Coastal Dayaks relied on fishing as their economic base, while their neighbors in interior Borneo relied on swidden (shifting plot) agriculture and hunting and gathering. While self-sufficient, the communities interacted with each other through trade, war, inter-marriage, and head-hunting.

Trade in the South China Sea commenced as early as the second century BCE , linking Borneo to a network that extended to China and India. Animal skins, parts, precious woods, black pepper, and tree resins were traded for large Chinese porcelain pots, textiles, and glass beads from India. The arrival of Islam led to the establishment of Muslim kingdoms along Borneo's coasts, the largest of which was the sultanate of Brunei. By the end of the 1600's, the sultan of Brunei controlled most of Borneo's west coast. Coastal Islamic sultanates of Malay ethnicity gained power through maritime commerce and imposed a system of economic oppression on the Dayaks.

The arrival of Portuguese and Spanish traders, followed by the Dutch in the early 1600s and the British in 1665, signified the beginning of European intervention in Borneo. Intent on creating a trade monopoly, the European powers wrested control from Islamic sultanates and established presences in the region. In the 1800s, the Dutch and British emerged predominant, with the former establishing a presence in the southern part of the island (Kalimantan) and the latter establishing protectorates in Sabah, Sarawak, and Brunei on the north coast. Dutch and British expansion was epitomized by violent warfare against the Dayaks and oppression of Chinese settlers who had migrated to work in the mines.

The Japanese occupation of Borneo during World War II was also marked by brutality and violence. Rapid industrial development commenced in 1946 with the return of Sarawak and Sabah to British colonial rule and the introduction of modern machinery that allowed for penetration into interior Borneo. New chainsaw and tractor equipment made exploitation of this previously inaccessible region possible, and the first mechanical logging commenced in 1947. Industrial logging intensified further after Sarawak and Sabah broke free from the British and joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963. Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch in 1949, after four years of intense guerrilla warfare. Brunei gained full independence from Britain in 1984.

Current Threats to Borneo's Forests and Indigenous Communities

Thirty years ago, the introduction of commercial logging spurred encroachment onto the lands of Borneo's indigenous peoples. The majority of all forests of Bornean Malaysia and Indonesia have been licensed to logging and plantation concessions, and most of these overlap with ancestral indigenous land claims. In violation of international and national law, logging and oil palm companies are clearing and burning vast tracts of ancient forest on a scale often exceeding rates of destruction in the Amazon. Current estimates predict that Borneo's rainforests will disappear by the year 2010.

Industrial logging and plantation development in Borneo's forests have polluted rivers, degraded fragile forest ecosystems and made it difficult for communities to find the forest products they need to survive. Forest destruction has led to a decline in the bird, fish and mammal populations dependent on trees for seeds and fruit, as well as to a loss of medicinal plant, rattan, and palm species. The incursion of roads has enabled poachers to access the area, and hillside erosion has led to extreme siltation of watersheds and coral reefs, which are affecting regional and global climate patterns.

Forest destruction has threatened traditional systems of land management and inflicted poverty, pollution and social disintegration on once thriving communities. Efforts to protect remaining land through blockades, demonstrations, and court cases have met with repression and brutality on the part of government agencies and corporations. As forest resources have become depleted, economic pressures have driven young villagers to leave their communities in search of employment. Industrial appropriation of indigenous land has compelled traditionally nomadic tribes to settle and become agriculturist, as their basic needs can no longer be fulfilled by forest resources. Recently settled nomads (Penan in Sarawak, Punan in East Kalimantan) are increasingly reliant on a cash economy for food, medicine, and other necessities. Tribes in transition to a settled lifestyle have little access to education and health facilities and lack basic survival knowledge such as food crop cultivation and construction of permanent living structures.

The Malaysian and Indonesian governments have done little to mitigate the impacts of forest destruction, and governmental conservation efforts have largely been a failure due to high demand for illegal timber by export mills. In protected areas, bribes offered to government officials enable logging companies to carry out illegal operations. National and international laws that defend indigenous land rights are rarely enforced and frequently broken. Lands without written documentation of ownership are considered available for exploitation, and while Malaysian law recognizes native customary rights to lands occupied and cultivated by indigenous peoples, there is no official procedure to document such claims. Government requirements for written documentation of land ownership leave the burden of proof on communities who have had little or no access to titles or maps for these purposes. Land tenure conflict is high across Borneo, and remains a crisis issue for forest communities.