The Remnants of Prehistoric Plant Pollen Reveal that Humans Shaped Forests 11,000 Years Ago

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/remnants-prehistoric-plant-pollen-reveal-humans-shaped-forests-11000-years-ago-180949985/?no-ist

tropical forest writes much of its history at large scale, producing trees as tall as skyscrapers and flowers the size of carry-on luggage. But by zooming in, scientists are uncovering chapters in forest history that were influenced by human activity far earlier than anyone thought.

A new study of pollen samples extracted from tropical forests in southeast Asia suggests humans have shaped these landscapes for thousands of years. Although scientists previously believed the forests were virtually untouched by people, researchers are now pointing to signs of imported seeds, plants cultivated for food, and land clearing as early as 11,000 years ago—around the end of the last Ice Age.
The study, to be published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Archaeological Science comes from researchers led by paleoecologist Chris Hunt, of Queen’s University, Belfast, who analyzed existing data and examined samples from Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Thailand and Vietnam.



Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/remnants-prehistoric-plant-pollen-reveal-humans-shaped-forests-11000-years-ago-180949985/#KYZF8xMbRAa6tyWW.99
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The discoveries could boost indigenous populations' claims to ancestral lands long thought to be untouched by human activity

By Josie Garthwaite

smithsonianmag.com
March 5, 2014

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/remnants-prehistoric-plant-pollen-reveal-humans-shaped-forests-11000-years-ago-180949985/#KYZF8xMbRAa6tyWW.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter

The discoveries could boost indigenous populations' claims to ancestral lands long thought to be untouched by human activity

By Josie Garthwaite

smithsonianmag.com
March 5, 2014

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/remnants-prehistoric-plant-pollen-reveal-humans-shaped-forests-11000-years-ago-180949985/#KYZF8xMbRAa6tyWW.99
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Back to Borneo, and an Eden at Risk

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/travel/back-to-borneo-and-an-eden-at-risk.html?_r=0

By KAREN J. COATES 

FEB. 21, 2014

Pa Lungan in the Kelabit Highlands of Sarawak, Malaysia. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Time

 There are no roads to the village of Pa Lungan, just a mucky water buffalo trail beneath a tight-knit canopy — among the last standing highland jungles on the island of Borneo. In spots, the trail is more swamp than path. But that does not mean all is quiet: The rain forest is a cacophonous place. Cicadas squeal and monkeys hoot as they romp through the trees. Bamboo creaks in the breeze as its stalks grind and rub in a primitive dance.

Our journey through Borneo began seven years ago, when, on a whim, my husband and I visited the Kelabit Highlands, situated in Sarawak, one of two Malaysian states on the island. I’d been invited to a conference in the capital city of Kuching; with some time on our hands, we headed to this remote region, most easily accessible by turboprop plane, which flew a few times each week from Miri, on the coast, to the small town of Bario. (The alternatives were many hours, even days, on precarious logging roads, or several weeks on foot through the forest.) 

Thanks to a reporting fellowship, we found ourselves back in the Highlands last year. Things had changed somewhat — that flight now leaves twice daily, and a newly graded dirt road eases travel in and out of Bario. 

The town had grown slightly — more houses, a few concrete-slab roads — but the tempo had not. Bario Asal, the town’s original longhouse, remains, albeit a bit quieter than in years past. But local families still gather by unvented fires in a common area filled with smoke and chitchat. Tourists come to see this. “More tourists, every day,” a Kelabit elder named Jenette Ulun said — one or two a day, sometimes a dozen. “There are more tourists than us locals,” she joked.

Photo

The Parill family at the Bario Asal longhouse. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

For centuries, the Kelabit people lived isolated lives, best known to the outside world as champion headhunters. But that began to change under the reign of the so-called White Rajahs, a British family by the name of Brooke, who reigned in Sarawak from 1841 to 1946 and tried to rid the region of headhunting. 

Meanwhile, Christian missionaries converted the Kelabits in the 1940s and clamped down on alcohol consumption. Ever since, the Kelabits, who now number about 6,000, have gladly practiced evangelical Christianity with ceremonies far less laborious than their old animist rituals, they say. And the Kelabits have modernized in other ways: Gone are skulls hanging from the rafters, replaced by fireside cellphones and laptops.

Until a few years ago, travelers came for the “Bario Loop,” and other multiday treks organized by local Kelabit guides that hugged the Indonesian border through jungles now logged. These days, most visitors take shorter hikes and experience Kelabit culture in local homes.

Photo

Typical Kelabit fare (pounded rice cake, chicken soup, mushroom soup and fried wild vegetables) at Henry Lagang’s guesthouse in Pa Dalih. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

On our first trip to Bario, my husband and I lodged at De Plateau, a homestay near the forest leading to Pa Lungan. I remember the cold-water showers and the outdoor sink, which faced a panorama of blue-green hills bathed in flowery air. Dinners consisted of fried wild boar, fiddlehead ferns and sautéed, burgundy-red ginger flowers.

We hired a guide who led us up and down a sodden trail, a foot-long blade called a parang hanging from a scabbard at his hip. Five hours on, we found Pa Lungan, set like a mountain oasis amid verdant, dewy grasses and sparkling ponds. That’s where we met Walter Paran, our village host. He took us to his wooden house set on stilts, where we met his wife, Moriaty, and his then-toddler daughter, Mujan. Walter’s mother squatted by a blackened hearth, tending a pot of simmering cucumber. “Very simple food,” Walter said.

Photo

Kids take a sunset joyride around the Pa Dalih longhouse in Sarawak, Malaysia. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

We also met Walter’s brother, Pasen Mado Inan, who praised the forests around him. “Most of the things we need for every day come from the jungle,” he said. He feared it would disappear — the trucks were getting closer. “We hate the logging.”

Walter asked us to return so he could take us deeper into the forest, “before logging disturbs that side.” As my husband and I flew out of Bario a few days later, we saw early evidence of what he feared. Below, thick jungle turned to naked hills laced with ruddy roads. “No one can stop them,” our pilot said. “It’s disgusting.”

Photo

One of the guest rooms at the Jungle Blues Guesthouse in Bario, Sarawak, Malaysia. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

For years, I wondered what became of Walter, his family and their forests. I read of jungles all over Borneo, chopped and cleared, replanted with palms. To raze a rain forest is to bulldoze one of the earth’s biggest carbon stores. To erase this forest would also be to annihilate an age-old way of life. 

Seven years later, we returned, again flying a turboprop into Bario. This time, we stayed with Stephen Baya, a Kelabit artist, and his Danish wife, Tine Hjetting, in their homestay-gallery called Jungle Blues Dream, in a longhouse overlooking the wild yonder of rice paddies, homes and wooded hills that disappeared each morning in a shroud of fog. Stephen, a self-taught artist, fills his wooden walls with vivid trees of life, a motif that symbolizes, for him, a “journey never-ending.” Stephen was born in the Highlands but spent years working for Hilton, Holiday Inn and a Printemps department store elsewhere in Malaysia. He prefers Bario. Living the city life, he said, means “always having to think about tomorrow, think about next week.”

Photo

Walter Paran, a local guide. Credit Jerry Redfern for The New York Times

When I told Stephen of my search for Walter, he relayed the message. Spotty cellphone coverage now permeates parts of the jungle. (We later learned that if Walter wedges his phone into one particular window and stands back, he can sometimes maintain a conversation.) Walter successfully received Stephen’s message and said he awaited our arrival.

Stephen drove us to the road’s end, and from there, we hoofed it, packs on backs, sticks in hand. Along the way, elements of our first trip came back: the tests of balance provided by bridges the width of two logs that spanned streams and broad swaths of mud; an avenue of palms beneath higher, old-growth trees. We stopped at the palms, sat on a log and ate canned chicken curry. In the distance, we heard what sounded like faint, high-pitched voices. There were no trails, no villages, no one around. Perhaps it was wind, making the treetops squeak. Elders later spoke of talking spirits that occasionally spook villagers on foot in the forest.

Pa Lungan was idyllic as ever. We found Walter’s home, but he was out somewhere. Moriaty and Mujan, who was 9 by the time of our return visit, offered us instant coffee, fried shrimp crackers and a seat at their long wooden table. After a cold bucket shower and a short rest, we joined a party next door: Village hunters had caught a boar that morning, and its head crackled on the fire. They offered strips of hot, juicy fat and grilled petai beans, known for their sulfuric stench but delicious flavor.

The sky that evening was a spectacle of tropical-fruit colors: tangerine, passionfruit, papaya. Then darkness fell, and Walter’s generator rumbled on. The power allowed for a few efficiency lights, and a TV — the latter an addition since our previous visit. Mujan lay under a blanket, watching Bruce Lee chop his way through “Fist of Fury.” 

In the morning, we were greeted by Walter, who remembered us and had many things to share. He wanted to show us why tourists still come to Pa Lungan. “They love the place because it’s still green,” he said. 

Nearby Pulong Tau National Park was expanded in 2008, creating a buffer between his village and the logging threat, he told us. He said Pa Lungan remains a “nice, quiet place” — for now.

Together, we hiked a nearby mountain, across the soft earthen floor beneath palms that Walter’s ancestors had planted generations ago. The forest was dense. “This one you can call primary jungle,” he said. From there, we scrambled a near-vertical climb to the hilltop, where a giant metal cross, placed by someone from Pa Lungan (its exact origins are murky), was dedicated to “God’s saving grace”; a sign commemorates the need to avoid bringing “anything detestable” into the land. Below, Pa Lungan seemed to float in an undulating sea of trees. 

That’s Indonesia, Walter said, pointing to the horizon. He added: “Other side of the mountain, they already logged.” He eyed the area behind the cross, toward another area that had already been logged. From this vantage, we could also see Pulong Tau. Walter hoped the park would last, that its boundaries would hold; not all government decisions do, he had told us earlier. 

Walter knew he was living in an Eden at risk, but has always said he will fight for it. “I’m the one who’s always fighting against this logging,” he told me in 2006. 

Today, he has more hope for this view, still intact. We peered across thick stands of trees where Walter had taken us foraging for edible palms and rattans, and bamboos with liquid inside. He said he could live in that forest on the food and drink it provided. It had, after all, sustained centuries of people before him. “That’s why we need to keep our jungle,” he said.

Bario, and most Kelabit villages, offer homestay lodging with meals included.

Jungle Blues Dream (junglebluesdream.weebly.com) charges 70 ringgit per person per day, about $21 at 3.25 ringgit to the dollar. The owners can help arrange guides (typically 80 to 100 ringgit a day) and lodging elsewhere. Prices for homestay lodgings generally range from 50 to 90 ringgit a day.

Several Pa Lungan villagers welcome guests, at similar rates, including Walter Paran; arrange in advance from Bario or simply show up.

A version of this article appears in print on February 23, 2014, on page TR8 of the New York edition with the headline: Back to Borneo, and an Eden at Risk. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Landscape of Memory Archaeology, oral history, and culture deep in the Malaysian jungle

http://www.archaeology.org/issues/127-1403/letter-from/1793-borneo-jungle-megalithic-mounds-stone-jars

By KAREN COATES

Monday, February 10, 2014

(Jerry Redfern) Henry Lagang is one of only 6,000 members of highland
Borneo’s Kelabit tribe. Each day, Henry Lagang heads into the forest to hunt
and forage with a machete slung over one shoulder, a gun over the other, and
dogs at his heels. His mother grows rice, and so do his neighbors. For generations,
people have lived and worked like this to claim the land—and survive—in the
inland jungles of Malaysian Borneo.

For centuries, the Kelabits, a small tribe of hunter-farmer-foragers, lived in near isolation in the Bornean forests that straddle Malaysia and Indonesia. The tribe practiced animism and headhunting until missionaries converted them to Christianity in the 1940s. In contrast to the wealth of archaeological and anthropological research on the inhabitants of the island’s coasts, very little is known about the early history of the peoples who dwelled in these highlands. With approximately 6,000 tribe members among a total population of roughly 20 million Borneans, the Kelabits are a tiny minority, and little has been published on their history. But archaeologists working there now may offer new insights into the missing pieces of Kelabit history, as well as that of their predecessors.

Until recently, this region of the island was accessible only by plane or a month-long hike through the jungle. A new dirt logging road now connects the interior and the coast, but the locals who choose to stay still hike far and wide for food. Their lives revolve around the jungle. Kelabits measure their treks in cigarette time, 47-year-old Lagang explains. For example, it’s a “two-cigarette” hike from his mother’s rice field to a recently abandoned longhouse known as Batu Patong, through bucolic fields flanked by thick rain forest resonating with the sounds of insects.

(Richard Bleiweiss)

As he heads toward the jungle, Lagang passes a stone mound where local stories say heirless ancestors buried their belongings. Just a few yards away, beside a neighbor’s pineapple garden, sits a broken ceramic jar in what remains of a cemetery. Beyond, the rain forest shelters thousands of years of the archaeological record stacked atop itself, layer upon layer, site upon site: century-old longhouses with fruit trees planted by previous inhabitants, 300- to 600-year-old stone burial jars covered in moss and caked in dirt, now-overgrown rice and sago plots that fed the highlanders up to 2,300 years ago, and even evidence of widespread forest burning, a potential sign of arboriculture, dating back 6,000 years or more. Archaeologists have no way yet to precisely identify many of the jungle’s past inhabitants or the creators of these sites. And the more scientists find, the more questions emerge about the histories that lie hidden.

Though the island of Borneo has 50,000 years of known human occupation, until recently very little excavation, or even survey, has taken place in the inland mountains. Now, research in the Kelabit jungles offers new possibilities for assembling the puzzle of human history across interior Borneo. Since 2007, Lindsay Lloyd-Smith of Sogang University’s Institute for East Asian Studies in Seoul, South Korea, has coordinated archaeological fieldwork for a multiyear, multidisciplinary research team called the Cultured Rainforest Project (CRF). Led by Cambridge archaeologist Graeme Barker, CRF includes scientists from universities and institutes across the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Malaysia, and combines work in the disciplines of archaeology, anthropology, and paleoecology. The project’s aim is to investigate past and present relationships between people and rain forest in interior highland Borneo. “We really didn’t know what to expect,” Lloyd-Smith says of the project’s beginnings. “We now have a pretty good chronological framework for human occupation and subsistence in the heart of Borneo, and it has revealed just how rich and varied the prehistory of central Borneo is. It’s exciting.” Yet the local knowledge of the past on which much of the CRF’s work also depends is slipping away quickly, and documentation of the archaeology might be one of the only ways to save it.

(Courtesy Lindsay Lloyd-Smith) Members of the Cultured Rainforest Project (CRF) 
are documenting the archaeological landscape of the Kelabit highlands, including this 
large stone mound known as a perupun. 

CRF’s work has also given Lagang and his neighbors their first formal chance to learn about Kelabit history, which is not taught in Malaysian schools. And the timing is critical. The last decade has brought rapid change as interior Borneo faces the rise of commercial logging and the cultural changes that come with it. Since 1990, according to a recent scientific report, logging has altered nearly 80 percent of Malaysian Borneo’s land surface. When trees go, so do traditional lifestyles that rely on them. Amid the effects of newly built logging roads, climate change, and a desire among young people for education and city jobs, Kelabit life seesaws between tradition and transition. Fading cultural knowledge compounds the threats to potential archaeological sites from the harsh climate and farmland development, explains Borbála Nyíri, who is Lloyd-Smith’s partner in both life and work, and a doctoral student at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. “Many sites are now only known to a handful of old people, and are quickly dropping out of the sphere of cultural memory,” Nyíri says.

Through the years, Lagang and his mother, Mariar Aran, have opened the doors of their longhouse to researchers—“many people, many times,” Lagang says—offering beds and mosquito nets, meals of homegrown rice, wild boar and deer he has hunted, and vegetables plucked from the jungle. Lagang serves as both host and guide through the tangled terrain.

The Kelabit highlands are dotted with signs of the past. Throughout the forest, there are hundreds of markers called etuu. The Kelabits believe that in order to establish rights over a landscape, it is essential to mark it. These markers can include megaliths, carved stones, stone jars, stone mounds, and even rice fields. One prominent type of mark is the large stone mound known as a perupun. Kelabits today say such mounds, which are found all across the central highlands and can reach 100 feet wide and 10 feet high, were spiritually significant. “These findings seem to indicate a widespread cultural tradition that flourished around 2,000 years ago, during the Early Metal Age,” Lloyd-Smith says. And they indicate use of the landscape going back generations.

(Jerry Redfern) Kelabit tribesman Walter Paran stands in front of a megalithic burial site—
one of the many types of man-made marks on the landscape—called Batu Ritong.

Kelabits also see etuu as evidence of a person’s ability to channel lalud, the manifest power believed to govern all nature, from rivers to rain to life itself. Lalud is deeply intertwined with the spirit world, and etuu are indicators of a person’s ties to those spirits and ancestors. According to CRF anthropologist Monica Janowski, “A successful human, of high status, should demonstrate the ability to manage and manipulate lalud effectively, and this should be visible through the etuu marks he or she makes on the landscape.”

Etuu aren’t the only signs of human occupation in the forest. There are also hundreds of old settlements in varying stages of decay. Some are standing wooden structures, such as Batu Patong, while others are recognizable only by fruits and palms planted by previous inhabitants. Some sites date to the 1800s, and locals can remember their names and histories. Others show evidence of occupation dating back 400 years, but nothing is known of the people who lived there. Researchers have also identified what appear to be large, open-air settlements with stone walls and iron artifacts dating to the Early Metal Age, some 1,000 to 2,300 years ago. “As far as I am aware, these represent the earliest Metal Age settlements yet discovered on Borneo,” Lloyd-Smith says. Cave burial sites on the island have been studied before, but much less is known about occupation sites. For the first time, Lloyd-Smith says, he and his colleagues can begin to see these early societies from a domestic perspective, rather than from their mortuary practices alone. But at this point, the researchers don’t know a lot about these sites, such as whether they were long-term villages or gathering points for multiple communities, or how iron tools were introduced, or who brought them.

(Courtesy Lindsay Lloyd-Smith, Jerry Redfern) CRF archaeologists excavate at 
Long Diit (above left), which was used as a settlement as far back as 2,400 years 
ago, then as a burial site, likely 300-600 years ago. One of the 14 stone jars (above 
right) found at the site is heavily overgrown but still stands. 

The evidence uncovered thus far provokes questions about who the jungle’s early inhabitants were, how they lived and worked, what they ate, and how they interacted with their regional neighbors at a time of thriving trade between Borneo, China, India, and Southeast Asia. Were the early inhabitants of interior Borneo indigenous to the highlands, or outsiders who came with iron tools? Were they among the first Neolithic farmers who arrived in Southeast Asia from Taiwan and the Philippines 1,000 years earlier? Or was this interior culture a mix of local development and regional migration?

These queries have led Lloyd-Smith on a new investigation, called the Early Borneo Project. He hopes to focus on the early relationships between Borneo’s highlands and coast, and on the question of whether regional trade could have sparked the construction of megaliths and monuments such as the perupuns in the heart of Borneo in the Early Metal Age. “The effect of such early ‘globalization’ on such distant interior locations has never been considered,” says Lloyd-Smith.

For outsiders, traveling through the Bornean jungle is a constant challenge of balance, strength, and determination. But Lagang knows this place, how it behaves, and how he must respond. Even fording rivers is routine for him. He braces his body against the forceful flow of cold water rushing over rocks. Once across the water, he bushwhacks through vines and leaves, clearing a path to Long Diit, a site that was a settlement 1,000 to 2,400 years ago, and was later used as a cemetery, or menatoh, likely beginning 300 to 600 years ago. Menatoh are found throughout the highlands. These were essentially “villages of the dead,” according to Janowski. There, the deceased continue to live in the parallel spirit world or dimension, growing rice, keeping chickens, and practicing other everyday activities.

(Jerry Redfern) A broken dragon jar at the edge of Lagang’s village of Pa Dalih is the only surviving vessel in what was once a cemetery filled with dragon jars.

 

At Long Diit, beneath the towering canopy of old-growth forest, are seven slab structures and 14 moss-covered stone burial jars, some standing, some fallen, some broken. The intact jars are the size of a small, slim person. The area was used as a burial ground before the Christian conversion, Lagang says. Pointing to a giant tree with gnarled roots, he recalls the skulls—“a lot of them”—that used to sit at its base when he was a child. Wherever you see this type of tree, he says, ancestral remains may lie beneath.

Stories like Lagang’s are critical to understanding the region. Sometimes, local legends are the very foundation from which researchers work.

Another type of historical evidence, large glazed stoneware storage jars, were likely first produced in China in the seventh through tenth centuries, and became highly prized trade items in Borneo, according to Nyíri. In the Kelabit highlands, these jars—known as dragon jars for the designs that typically adorn their sides—were keepsakes, or were used for rice or wine. Others were used for storing the bones of the dead in pre-Christian cemeteries. “Dragon jars became treasured heirloom pieces passed down for generations,” Nyíri says. Only the wealthy upper classes owned them, and some Kelabit elders still keep these jars in their homes. “They put rice inside,” says a 43-year-old villager named Walter Paran, describing the jar his family bought, long before he was born, from traders across the border in Kalimantan for the price of two buffalo.

Today Paran takes care of several jars that his uncle, now deceased, kept in his house. His living relatives don’t know much about them, their origins, or their value. “We forgot to ask,” he says. “That’s a big mistake for us. That is why we are losing our history …that’s why our children, they don’t know.” He’s happy the CRF team is taking notes and recording data. Paran, like many elders, says Kelabit history is fading from memory. His nine-year-old daughter, Mujan, and her peers trek five hours to the town of Bario, where they attend boarding school. In class, they learn nothing about the Kelabit culture. “They teach history,” Paran says, “but not this type of history.”

When Lagang was a child, several dragon jars sat at the edge of his village, right above a river. Only the pieces of only one remain today. He recalls that when he was a young boy, he approached that place with caution because the jars held spirits that sometimes spoke—a story repeated by Kelabit elders across the highlands. “Ting, ting, ting … whoo whoo,” he mimics the voices. When he heard that, he ran away fast, he says. It’s been a long time since the spirits have spoken to Lagang.

(Jerry Redfern) Paran is the caretaker for an imported Chinese dragon jar that has been in his 
family for generations. 

Both Kelabit villagers and CRF researchers hope their collaboration can help fill the knowledge gap. “We have always been warmly welcomed, looked after, and supported, even adopted,” says Nyíri. She feels a responsibility in return, and a duty to inform. “We hear complaints that researchers collect data, publish it, and make a career out of a few months’ work,” without sharing their findings with local communities, she says. To remedy that, the archaeologists have exhibited their findings, tools, and future research plans for local audiences. The CRF has published annual reports in the Sarawak Museum Journal and distributed project pamphlets throughout the highlands. “It’s only ethical and fair to share even preliminary results with the local community,” Nyíri says.

(Jerry Redfern)

Brochures about CRF’s work have a place of honor in the guesthouse run by Henry Lagang.

 
It’s also what locals crave. “I’ve been interviewed many, many times, but I haven’t seen the results before,” says an elder named Jenette Ulun, who is active in Kelabit festivals and whose name often appears on travel blogs as an authority on Kelabit cultural traditions. “It’s good to finally know the results,” says Ulun. “It’s not only for us to see. Now our children can see this is what’s done for the Kelabits, for our people, and understand our culture and know what their parents, their grandparents, their great-grandparents did. Otherwise there is no written record.”

That record is critical in the fight to preserve local heritage. “‘Rural development’ is the buzz phrase in Sarawak these days,” says Lloyd-Smith. The term encompasses everything from palm oil and rubber plantations that replace rain forests after logging, to agricultural projects and homestay tourism. “Within such an environment,” he says, “only by the community realizing the cultural value of their archaeology, and being proud of how important it is for Borneo and the whole of Southeast Asia, can the protection of the cultural heritage of the Kelabit highlands be safeguarded. Archaeology can play a large role in this.”

One day, Lagang stands atop a perupun just a few hundred yards from his longhouse. From this vantage point, he looks to the past. “Before, when I was small, this was all jungle,” he says, gazing at his neighbors’ homes and vegetable gardens. Lagang used to hunt birds with his blowpipe right around here. Life was a bit different then. More people lived in the longhouse, gathering in the evenings and early mornings around smoky open fires in the communal hallway that traditionally connected one Kelabit family to dozens of others. It was a close, collective existence. But these days, many permanent village residents opt for individual family homes. Modern houses with metal roofs have sprung up around the perupun where Lagang used to hunt. Rice paddies and gardens sit where trees once stood. Though jungle still surrounds the village, times have changed, and so has Kelabit culture.

(Jerry Redfern) One of Lagang’s hunting dogs sits by several toppled stone jars at Long Diit.

At sunset, Lagang works in the longhouse kitchen, preparing a dinner of paddy rice, fried pork fat, bamboo shoots, and mouse deer soup—all harvested from the forests that feed him every day, the same forests that fed millennia of highlanders. That evening, he shows snapshots of the researchers who have stayed with him through the years. When dinner is finished and the dishes are cleaned, Lagang sits alone beside the open-hearth fire, staring into the night. It’s Sunday, the last evening of a weeklong holiday. Almost all the young adults have returned to school and work in the city. Just a few elders sit and chat on the wobbly wooden floor planks, 300 feet away from Lagang, at the end of the longhouse. The lights are out, and the lengthy common corridor ends in blackness. How long will this longhouse last? How long will the Kelabit forest and the archaeological sites within it endure? Will the Kelabits have a chance to learn their own history before it disappears? Ties to the ancestral past, imprinted in stone and carved into the land, still bind the Kelabits today. The perupun Lagang remembers as a child remains intact, undisturbed. He’s happy the archaeologists are studying it. “They write the story about the Kelabit people. They can protect the megaliths, the culture,” he says. “Good.”

Karen Coates is a Social Justice Reporting Fellow at the International Center for Journalists and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism.

Rainforests in Far East shaped by humans for the last 11,000 years

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140124082608.htm

Date:

January 24, 2014

Source:

Queen's University, Belfast

Summary:

New research shows that the tropical forests of South East Asia have been shaped by humans for the last 11,000 years. The rain forests of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Thailand and Vietnam were previously thought to have been largely unaffected by humans, but the latest research suggests otherwise.

New research from Queen's University Belfast shows that the tropical forests of South East Asia have been shaped by humans for the last 11,000 years.

The rain forests of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Thailand and Vietnam were previously thought to have been largely unaffected by humans, but the latest research from Queen's Palaeoecologist Dr Chris Hunt suggests otherwise.

A major analysis of vegetation histories across the three islands and the SE Asian mainland has revealed a pattern of repeated disturbance of vegetation since the end of the last ice age approximately 11,000 years ago.

The research, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Academy, is being published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. It is the culmination of almost 15 years of field work by Dr Hunt, involving the collection of pollen samples across the region, and a major review of existing palaeoecology research, which was completed in partnership with Dr Ryan Rabett from Cambridge University.

Evidence of human activity in rainforests is extremely difficult to find and traditional archaeological methods of locating and excavating sites are extremely difficult in the dense forests. Pollen samples, however, are now unlocking some of the region's historical secrets.

Dr Hunt, who is Director of Research on Environmental Change at Queen's School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, said: "It has long been believed that the rainforests of the Far East were virgin wildernesses, where human impact has been minimal. Our findings, however, indicate a history of disturbances to vegetation. While it could be tempting to blame these disturbances on climate change, that is not the case as they do not coincide with any known periods of climate change. Rather, these vegetation changes have been brought about by the actions of people.

"There is evidence that humans in the Kelabit Highlands of Borneo burned fires to clear the land for planting food-bearing plants. Pollen samples from around 6,500 years ago contain abundant charcoal, indicating the occurrence of fire. However, while naturally occurring or accidental fires would usually be followed by specific weeds and trees that flourish in charred ground, we found evidence that this particular fire was followed by the growth of fruit trees. This indicates that the people who inhabited the land intentionally cleared it of forest vegetation and planted sources of food in its place.

"One of the major indicators of human action in the rainforest is the sheer prevalence of fast-growing 'weed' trees such as Macaranga, Celtis and Trema. Modern ecological studies show that they quickly follow burning and disturbance of forests in the region.

"Nearer to the Borneo coastline, the New Guinea Sago Palm first appeared over 10,000 years ago. This would have involved a voyage of more than 2,200km from its native New Guinea, and its arrival on the island is consistent with other known maritime voyages in the region at that time -- evidence that people imported the Sago seeds and planted them."

The findings have huge importance for ecological studies or rainforests as the historical role of people in managing the forest vegetation has rarely been considered. It could also have an impact on rainforest peoples fighting the advance of logging companies.

Dr Hunt continued: "Laws in several countries in South East Asia do not recognise the rights of indigenous forest dwellers on the grounds that they are nomads who leave no permanent mark on the landscape. Given that we can now demonstrate their active management of the forests for more than 11,000 years, these people have a new argument in their case against eviction."

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Story Source:
The above story is based on materials provided by Queen's University, Belfast. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. C.O. Hunt, R.J. Rabett. Holocene landscape intervention and plant food production strategies in island and mainland Southeast Asia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2013.12.011

Proposed township to benefit Telang Usan — Rep

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/08/15/proposed-township-to-benefit-telang-usan-rep/

Posted on August 15, 2013, Thursday

MIRI: The proposed Baram Hydroelectric Project (HEP) new township will bring many benefits to the Telang Usan constituency such as increasing the people’s standard of living.

Telang Usan assemblyman Dennis Ngau told The Borneo Post yesterday that the plan showed the government’s willingness and effort to develop and transform Baram into a better and more developed constituency by 2020.

“Personally, I agree with the proposal to turn this constituency into a modern one, while still reflecting the culture and traditions of the multi-ethnic people living in Baram.

“The people must understand that the proposed Telang Usan new township will also become a boost for tourism that surely will improve the livelihoods of the people in Baram,” he said.

Dennis pointed out that many members of the Orang Ulu community from Ulu Baram have achieved success in life, but did not return to the longhouses and contribute to the community.

“If this Telang Usan new township is built one day, it will also open many doors for job opportunities for these young people to go back to their roots and contribute something to the people and our country’s economic growth,” he said.

He urged Baram folk, especially the younger generation, to look at the positive side of the proposal which would benefit them and their families.

“Many opportunities will be given to them, especially job opportunities such as in the tourism industry,” he added.

On Tuesday, Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said the proposed township would have elements reflecting the rich history of the Kayans, Kenyahs and Kelabits, who migrated from East Java to Batang Kayan in Indonesia before settling in Kapit and Baram.

Association receives funds in memory of Ngimat Ayu

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/07/25/association-receives-funds-in-memory-of-ngimat-ayu/

Posted on July 25, 2013, Thursday

THANK YOU: Association representative Jacqueline Buri (back fifth right) receives the donation from Ngimat’s youngest daughter Nancy Daun in the presence of family members.

MIRI: The Miri Palliative Care Association received RM2,000 donation from the family of the late Kelabit paramount chief Ngimat Ayu recently.

His daughter Enne said the family will also donate all profits from sales of the book ‘A Tribute to a Kelabit Paramount Chief’ as a sign of appreciation for the association.

“The people from the Miri Palliative Care Association visited our family, particularly my late father, once every two weeks after he became very sick last February.

“We were so thankful to the association for helping us to go through the moment where they taught us more on how to care for our father,” she said.

Enne explained that Ngimat was diagnosed with cancer about three years ago and the family had been terrified when they first heard the news.

“Apart from our own family, friends and relatives, we have the people from the association visiting us and giving us the moral support we needed,” she said.

She urged those who wished to help those in need, especially cancer patients, to become association members or volunteers, adding she will also register as a volunteer.

“I was driven to become a volunteer because I have seen how they cared for my late father. He was well-taken care of and why not I do something for other people as well, especially for cancer patients,” she said.

Tribute to a Kelabit paramount chief

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/07/20/tribute-to-a-kelabit-paramount-chief/

by Lucy Bulan. Posted on July 20, 2013, Saturday

DEEPLY ROOTED: A family portrait.

Ngimat Ayu

A PIONEER, innovator and paramount chief of the Kelabits, Ngimat Ayu passed away on July 18, 2013 at the age of 92, leaving a legacy of immense love and kindness, outstanding leadership and tremendous wisdom.

Surrounded by his wife, children and grandchildren as he breathed his last, Ngimat Ayu was one Kelabit who had lived a full life and stood tall and strong amongst all odds.

As news of his passing began to reach people, especially Kelabits in Malaysia and those living in other parts of the world, condolence messages began pouring in to his immediate family members and relatives.

Many recalled fond memories of Ngimat Ayu and how much he will be missed.

Indeed, this man whom his grandchildren call a legend had left a lasting impression on everyone – young and old – who were fortunate to have met him.


Family history


Born on July 15, 1921 in Pa’ Main, Bario in the Kelabit highlands, Ngimat Ayu, whose given name was Gerawat Aran, was one of four children of Tagung Aran @ Ngemung Sakai and Sineh Tagung Aran.

His siblings were Lu’ui, Muda and Dayang (Tepuh Luyuq dedtur). Because he was quite sickly as a child, and according to Kelabit custom of meman anak, Gerawat was adopted and brought up by his uncle (his father’s youngest brother) Tekapen Raja and Edteh Kedieh Aran.

In 1955, he married Martha Padan from Long Pupung, Kerayan. In those days, he was one of the rare ones to get a bride from Kerayan, Kalimantan, a marriage arranged by their relatives. And as is the Kerayan custom, he had to pay a huge dowry for this beautiful, hardworking maiden of noble ancestry.

They were blessed with seven children – Abel, Anne, Felicity Ruran, Linda, Evelyn, Nancy Daun, and Scott Apoi. They became adoptive parents to three children of Gerawat’s sister and brother-in-law Tepuh Luyuq, both of whom had died early from sickness – Datin Sri Mariam Balan, Maria Peter Lu’ui and the late Tony Ngimat Ayu.

Following the birth of his eldest child, Abel Ngimat, Gerawat changed his name to Ngimat Ayu according to Kelabit tradition. Then on the birth of his first grandchild, Stephen Baya Peter (the son of Maria Peter Lu’ui), Ngimat Ayu changed his name to Belaan Tauh.

Meantime, Ngimat Ayu had adopted five other children. Today, he has 31 grandchildren and 18 great grandchildren.

Before going to school, young Ngimat Ayu (known then by his given name Gerawat) worked with the Allied Forces in the Japanese Resistance Army.

He remembered being in Ba’Kelalan and Belawit when the Japanese surrendered, and helped the Allied Forces to escort the Japanese out of Belawit.

He also fearlessly assisted Major Tom Harrison to fish out the Penan and the Iban from Indonesia who were believed to have murdered Hardin, the Resident of Marudi at the end of 1945.

Gerawat attended the first school set up by Major Tom Harrison in Pa’ Main Longhouse at the age of 24.

“Many parents were reluctant to allow their children to go to school,” he said.

“They insisted that they themselves had done very well without schooling —why waste time in school?”

But young Gerawat’s father was one of the chiefs responsible for the introduction of the first school in the community, so Gerawat became one of the first of 19 students to attend school when the school first opened in 1946.

The school Tom Harrison started had one teacher, Paul Kohuan from East Timor.

He taught Gerawat until Primary Four in Pa’ Main School, after which Tom Harrison brought Gerawat to Kuching to work in the Sarawak Museum.

His job was to collect and record artifacts for the Museum.

While working, he continued his Primary Five and Six education in Merpati Jepang through night studies.

Young Gerawat and his peers went to school with one vision in mind: to return to the Kelabit Highlands and serve the community (nuuh bawang), and to uplift their living condition.

So on completion of his primary school education, Tom Harrison told Gerawat he was to go into the medical line as there were enough Kelabit teachers already.

He acquiesced without question.


The medical assistant-dresser


Gerawat started his training as a medical assistant (then called dresser) in Kuching in 1951, and was the first Orang Ulu to be trained as a dresser.

“When I began my practical training in Kuching, I still had my Orang Ulu haircut and elongated earlobes, and the patients always asked to see the medical assistant, not knowing I was the one.

“I always told them ‘he is inside his room’ but treated them myself and only referred complicated cases to the senior medical officer,” he said.

Gerawat’s training was so comprehensive that he knew how to stitch wounds, conduct simple surgery like cutting off elongated earlobes, treat leprosy, pull out teeth, order and disburse medication and even deliver babies.

On his initial return to the Kelabit Highlands, Gerawat was accompanied and introduced as a dresser by SAO Kusil Tingang and Tom Harrison.

He was based in Pa’ Main, but made regular monthly trips to each outstation village in the highlands — from Long Banga in the south to all the villages in the Kelapang and Debpur basin, and to Kuba’an, Long Lellang and Seridan villages.

Even after being joined by other dressers later, he continued to be the travelling ‘medicine man’ for years, organising groups of porters from each village in making monthly trips to Lio Mattu to collect and carry medicine sent from Marudi for him to disburse.

He came up with the idea of using used cooking oil tins as storage containers for his medicine.

He stored them at each village so that he could reduce the number of porters to go around with him.

“I worked alone as the only dresser in the highlands for years. I never ran out of medicine. I made sure there was regular supply all the time even though transportation was very difficult.

“Everything had to be transported by boat from Marudi to Lio Mattu, and by land from thence to Bario. Today, you people have aeroplanes and helicopters to carry medicine to Bario, and you still have not enough stock of medicine! I cannot understand this,” he lamented.

Gerawat @ Ngimat Ayu served as ulu dresser altogether for 15 years (1951-65).

The effectiveness of his service, assisted afterwards by other health assistants, can be seen from the rapid disappearance of leprosy, skin diseases, malaria and fatal epidemics (kedta in Kelabit) that had plagued the Kelabits for generations and almost wiped out the tribe at one point.

One of his achievements had been to inculcate clean habits among the people.

“I got people to drink only boiled water and remove their livestock from under their longhouses and to disallow dogs from living together in the longhouses. I faced a great deal of opposition especially in this but with support from Tom Harrison and the missionaries, we succeeded in changing peoples’ lifestyles,” he said.


The paramount chief


In 1965, Tom Harrison arranged for an election of a new Penghulu to replace the then Penghulu Lawai Besara.

Four contestants stood for the post (Inan Mulun, Ulit Mattu, Galih Balang, and Ngimat Ayu) and Ngimat Ayu was elected.

He had to quit his post as medical assistant and thence began his long history as the paramount chief of the Kelabit.

Ngimat Ayu served as the only Kelabit Penghulu from 1966-1997.

And then in 1998, the government decided to appoint a Pemanca as the new paramount chief of the Kelabit.

Penghulu Ngimat Ayu was appointed and he served as Pemanca until 2005 with three new Penghulus as his assistants: Henry Jalla of Bario, Tulu Ayu of Long Seridan, and Gan Tuloi of Long Peluan. Ngimat Ayu was a visionary and an innovator.

During his tenure as the paramount chief, he witnessed the opening up of Bario Lem Baaq to rapid development, including the Codification of the Kelabit Customary Laws (the Adet Kelabit 2008), the building of an all-weather-airport, the introduction of ICT through e-Bario, the building of the inter village road within Bario and the road connecting Bario to the outside world, to name a few.

He strongly supported the idea of Bario Ceria and the provision of power supply through the solar farm in Bario, especially after the failed hydro-hybrid project.

His magnificent art of negotiation, extraordinary hospitality to guests and locals alike and his tremendous leadership skills have enabled him to gain much favour from people in authority on behalf of the Kelabit community.

His special ability to identify with young and old, educated and uneducated, strangers and family alike has endeared him to a multitude of people, making him easily approachable and loveable.

As far as he was able and available, he visited every sick person he knew, went to every funeral, attended every wedding he was invited to and was able to laugh and cry with people he knew.

In a nutshell, Ngimat Ayu made time for everyone.


Straddling two worlds


Ngimat Ayu has straddled many eras and was a pioneer in many fields.

He served as the first Orang Ulu medical assistant (ulu dresser) from 1951-65 and left his job to become the first elected Penghulu of the Kelabit from 1966-97.

He was then promoted to become the first Kelabit Pemanca from 1998-2005.

Ngimat Ayu was born (in 1921) before the Japanese Occupation and before the impact of the rule of the White Rajah had been fully felt by the Kelabit.

He had personally experienced the hardship under the old way of life but understood the value systems, the customs and traditions that gave the Kelabit their identity.

He lived through and fought during the Japanese Occupation and helped bridge the gap between our Indonesian neighbours and our people after the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation in the 1960’s.

He embraced Christianity as a first generation Christian in the highlands and witnessed the extraordinary impact their faith had on the Kelabit community.

He participated in the resettlement exercise whereby the neighbouring villages were relocated to Bario Lem Baaq during the Confrontation.

Thus, he experienced the hard work and excitement of opening up new horizons and fresh boundaries as well as the pain and loss of leaving the familiar.

As Penghulu, he was instrumental in settling many legal issues related to this relocation exercise in a peaceful manner.

Ngimat Ayu was a student pioneer of the first school in the Kelabit Highlands, and lived to see even his grandchildren finish university education.

He saw the schools in the Kelabit Highlands grow from the first primary school to lower secondary school level.

Before he died, he said: “My dream and vision is to see the secondary school in Bario reaching Form 5 level so that more students can reach Form 5 level instead of dropping out of school. Please don’t give up on the vision.”

Ngimat Ayu is one Kelabit man who has lived a full life, faced countless challenges and still stood tall and strong against all odds.

Clothed with God’s full armour, he was able, having done everything, to stand (Eph 6:13).

He leaves behind a legacy of immense love and kindness, outstanding leadership, and tremendous wisdom.

He is greatly missed by family, friends, the whole Kelabit community and all who knew him.

Farewell our father, cousin, uncle, grandfather. Rest in Peace. Until we meet again.

Aussies and Kiwis attend Bario Asal anniversary

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/06/27/aussies-and-kiwis-attend-bario-asal-anniversary/

Posted on June 27, 2013, Thursday

GOLDEN JUBILEE: Kijan (standing fitfh right) with some of the guests at the anniversary celebration.

MIRI: Nearly 100 Australians and New Zealanders attended the 50th anniversary of Bario Asal Kelabit longhouse in the highlands of Bario recently.

Councillor Kijan Toynbee, a political secretary to the chief minister, said guests enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the Kelapang River and the green pasture of the highlands.

“Guest were amazed by the beautiful countryside with friendly people,” she said yesterday.

“It was a memorable time for the Kelabits of Bario Asal as they celebrated their 50th anniversary with guests from Australia and New Zealand.”

She said they also had the opportunity to taste the local delicacies including rice wrapped in leaves.

The foreign guests also took part in a church service as well as cultural night, where Kelabit dances were performed.

‘Bario forever in our hearts’

http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/04/02/bario-forever-in-our-hearts/

by Mary Francis, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on April 2, 2013, Tuesday

RECALLING THE PAST: Judi shares stories about her father.

ONLY SURVIVOR: Jack Tredrea (left) and Judi (right) with a school staff in Bario.

GET TOGETHER: Judi (second left) with Soh (fourth left) and Soswe members. Chong is standing on the left.

MIRI: Bario, in the famed Kelabit Highlands, is deeply etched in the hearts of many foreigners whose fathers had served the special allied forces there during the Second World War (WWII).

One who has fond memories of Bario is Australian Judi Wigzell. She recently shared with Society of English Writers Northern Sarawak (Soswe) members here about her father, the late Sergeant FA Wigzell, a New Zealander, attached to the Special Operations Australia ‘Z’ Special Unit.

The Special Unit, which is also known as the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Special Operations Australia (SOA) and the Services Reconnaissance Department (SRD), was an allied special force formed to operate behind Japanese lines in South East Asia during the WWII.

Comprising Australians, British, Dutch, New Zealand, Timorese and Indonesian members, the ‘Z’ Special Unit operated as a specialist reconnaissance and sabotage body. They largely operated in Borneo and in the islands of the former Netherlands East Indies.

“My father was so emotional even after so many years away from the battlegrounds,” said Judi at the Gymkhana Club here.

Judi flew to Bario with three other Australians on March 25, 2013, to hand over memorial tablets of eight Australians and 23 New Zealanders to a school library there.

They went there on March 25 as it was the day these fallen heroes parachuted into the jungles of Bario back then.

Judi was accompanied by 93-year-old Jack Tredrea, the sole survivor from the Australian ‘Z’ Special Unit, Linda Sanderson Burr (daughter of the late QX11361 Sergeant C.L. Sanderson) and Bob Pinkerton (son of the late NX43707 Lieutenant R.J.D. Pinkerton).

Not wanting to miss this rare occasion, Soswe secretary Jennie Soh flew to Bario to witness the handing over of the tablets.

Soh said Judi’s story tugged at her heart strings.

“It’s great to know that the children of these fallen heroes are preserving their stories and passing them to their future generations.

“We highly value the contributions and sacrifices of these fallen heroes,” Soh told The Borneo Post yesterday.

Soh hoped that locals whose parents were also involved in the ‘Z’ Special Operation as messengers or porters treasure the stories told to them by their parents.

Story-telling is one of Soswe’s monthly activities. Soswe will be holding a book sharing session at its president’s residence at No.264, Piasau Garden, from 2.30pm to 4.30pm on April 6.

For enquiries, call president Luke Chong at 012-8515105/lucas8@cheerful.com or Soh at 016-8883679/jsohyankhoon@gmail.

Commando Semut Ops, part of Bario’s history

 http://www.theborneopost.com/2013/03/28/commando-semut-ops-part-of-barios-history/#ixzz2OrfC8e18

 Posted on March 28, 2013, Thursday

KUCHING: Commando Semut Operation, undertaken by the Z Special Unit on May 25, 1945 during World War II in Bario, was one of the most important events that has shaped the history of the Sarawak, according to an Australian war veteran.

Jack Tredrea, a 93-year-old retired warrant officer from South Australia and the only surviving member of the unit, said that the landing was a significant step by the Allied forces against the Japanese army in Borneo during the war.

“Back then, Bario was an ideal place for the attack as it was a low key and unassuming place to for us to be in,” he said when relating his war experience during the Bicara Warisan, organised by the Sarawak Museum, here yesterday, on the secret Semut Operation.

That historic day when he parachuted down to the plains of Bario, off the plane in the early hours of the morning, he recalled being pleasantly surprised by the warm reception received from the locals there.

Following the first landing, more than 80 operations were carried out with the help of more than 2,000 indigenous people, including the Kelabits, Ibans and Penan, who killed more than 1,846 Japanese soldiers, he said. — Bernama

Highlanders gather at trans-boundary meeting

http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/07/28/highlanders-gather-at-trans-boundary-meeting/

Posted on July 28, 2012, Saturday

FOR YOU: George Sigar (left) presents a Formadat publication to Pemanca Philip while Pak Lewi looks on.

KUCHING: Kelabit paramount chief Pemanca Philip Lakai officiated at the seventh Formadat Trans-boundary Annual Meeting in Bario recently.

‘Formadat’ stands for ‘Alliance of the Indigenous People of the Highlands of Borneo’.

“It is a trans-boundary, grassroots initiative started by indigenous people in the highlands in the Heart of Borneo – the Lun Dayeh/Lun Bawang, Sa’ban and Kelabit,” said a press release issued.

This year the meeting was organised in conjunction with Bario’s annual Slow Food Festival where Formadat celebrated with members its vision and heritage for their homeland.

Head of Indonesia Formadat, Pak Lewi Gala outlined a vision for the sustainable future of Borneo.

He said: “We Lun Dayeh, Kelabit, Lun Bawang and Sa’ban, the indigenous people of the highlands in the Heart of Borneo, share a common heritage and common land.

“We come together in Formadat to increase awareness and understanding of the highland communities, build local capacity, and encourage sustainable development in the Heart of Borneo.”

The highlands of Borneo comprise the Malaysian sub districts of Bario, Ba’ Kelalan and Long Semadoh in Sarawak, Long Pasia in Sabah, and the Indonesian sub-districts of Krayan and Krayan Selatan in East Kalimantan.

This area constitutes a geographical, environmental and cultural land in the Heart of Borneo, one of the few remaining places in Southeast Asia that still holds huge tracts of tropical rainforests.

According to the head of Malaysia Formadat, Penghulu George Sigar from Ba’ Kelalan, they established Formadat in October 2004 as an indigenous organisation to facilitate and share information, as well as discuss common issues and strategies regarding the future of the highlands.

“Our mission is to create awareness and understanding of the highland communities, maintain our cultural traditions, build local capacity, and encourage sustainable development in the highlands in the Heart of Borneo by protecting our natural resources and traditional knowledge.

“Our organisation has been registered in Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan. WWF-Malaysia and WWF-Indonesia have been our partners in helping us on conservation, livelihood and capacity building,” he said.

He said they looked forward to welcome more partnerships with the governments of Malaysia and Indonesia, and other organisations to support their initiative for achieving sustainable conservation in the Heart of Borneo.