THE PEOPLE OF BORNEO
Borneo is home to nearly 18 million people, nearly doubling since 1980. Borneo, like New Guinea, has long had two very different populations: lowly populated, highly tribalized groups in the inaccessible interior and relatively dense agricultural populations along the coast and the lower floodplains of major rivers. The inland people (Dayaks) were primarily hunter-gatherers with some shifting cultivation, spoke a number of tribal languages, and practiced mostly animist religions. In contrast, coastal populations relied heavily on oceanic trade, rice farming and fishing, spoke regional dialects of Malay, and were predominantly Muslim. The coastal Malay population dominated (as they still do today) politically and militarily the inland tribal population, which was characterized by constant clan war-fare.
When the Dutch arrived in Borneo they encouraged missionaries to convert the inland Dayaks, a term that refers to the indigenous farming population of Borneo, not a distinct tribe. The Dutch had considerably less success making inroads with the coastal Muslim. There had long been animosity between the inland and the coastal populations, and the addition of organized religion only added conflict. After independence, the influx of transmigrants and loggers only worsened relations between the largely Christian Dayaks and Muslims.
Today about two-thirds of the population of Borneo is Muslim, while around 30 percent is non-Muslim indigenous. Few nomadic tribes exist on the island.
WWF's "Treasure Island At Risk" report reviews the main groups in Borneo, including the seven main Dayak groups: the Iban (formerly known as Sea Dayak); the Bidayuh (Land Dayak); the Kayan-Kenyah group; the Maloh; the Barito; the Kelabit-Lun Bawang group; and the Dusun-Kadazan-Murut.
The Penan are a group of hunter-gatherers that live in the rainforests of Borneo. Their origin and history are poorly known and today there are probably less than 10,000 Penan. Sellato (1994) reports that less than 4 percent of these are still entirely nomadic. Nomadic Penan are highly dependent of sago palm and wild boar for subsistence.
In the late 1980s the Penan, along with other groups, made international headlines when they blocked roads at more than 20 logging sites in Sarawak. The blockages were re-established off-and-on into the late 1990s.
Large-scale opposition among Borneo villagers to deforestation
(09/10/2013) Nearly two-thirds of villagers surveyed across rainforests in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo are against large-scale deforestation due to the adverse impacts on livelihoods and the environment, finds a comprehensive new study across 185 communities. The research, conducted over a one-year period by an international team of scientists, is published in this week's issue of the journal PLOS ONE. The study found that people who live near forests place the greatest value on the benefits they afford, including medicinal plants, game, clean water, and fiber.
Activists raise alarm over park that will dispossess Borneo tribe of land
(07/10/2013) Rights activists are warning that a proposal to classify islands forming in the midst of the Bakun Dam reservoir will further deprive indigenous forest people of their traditional land.
Improving community healthcare helps protect rainforests in Borneo
(03/14/2013) Providing high quality healthcare to communities around a rainforest park in Indonesian Borneo may be helping reduce chronic illegal logging, suggests a new assessment published by a conservation group. The five-year impact assessment published by Indonesia-based Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) is based on surveys of nearly 1,500 households and 6,345 people living around Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan. The study compares key health, economic, and conservation indicators to a baseline survey taken in 2007, prior to the launch of the project.
Helping Borneo's indigenous people fight for their forests
(01/28/2013) In the 1980's and 1990's more timber was removed from the rainforests Borneo than from all of Africa and South America combined. This tragic loss of habitat, with its attendant loss of wildlife and indigenous cultures, has gone largely unrecognized in the United States. Joe Lamb, a Berkeley-based writer, activist, and arborist, has worked to change that.
Terra preta found in Asia
(05/14/2012) Indigenous people of the Amazon produced rich agricultural soil by adding charcoal, manure, and animal bones to the otherwise nutrient-poor dirt of the world's greatest rainforest. The inputs allowed early indigenous people to farm their terra preta, or dark earth, sustainably in the Amazon. To date such practices are only known from the the Amazon and parts of Africa. But in a recent paper in the open access journal Forests scientists in Indonesian Borneo report on the first evidence of terra preta in Asia.
Featured video: indigenous community witnesses end of forest for palm oil
(03/26/2012) Forests are falling across Borneo. A new videoblog by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Telepak have documented the loss of one such forest in Indonesian Borneo, and its impact on the indigenous Dayak Benuaq people.
The other side of the Penan story: threatened tribe embraces tourism, reforestation
(12/19/2011) News about the Penan people is usually bleak. Once nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on Borneo, the indigenous Penan have suffered decades of widespread destruction of their forests and an erosion of their traditional culture. Logging companies, plantation developments, massive dams, and an ambivalent government have all played a role in decimating the Penan, who have from time-to-time stood up to loggers through blockades, but have not been successful in securing recognition of legal rights to their traditional lands. Yet even as the Penan people struggle against the destruction of their homelands, they are not standing still. Several Penan villages have recently begun a large-scale reforestation program, a community tourism venture, and proclaimed their a portion of their lands a "Peace Park."
Rainforest tribe forcibly removed from dam area to palm oil plantation
(06/23/2011) A thousand Penan indigenous people have been forcibly moved from their rainforest home to monoculture plantations, reports Survival International. To make way for the Murum dam, the Malaysian state government of Sarawak is moving a thousand Penan from their traditional homes, but as apart of the deal the government promised to move the Penan to another part of their ancestral land. The government has since sold that land to a palm oil company, which is currently clearcutting the forests for plantations.
Report: corruption in Sarawak led to widespread deforestation, violations of indigenous rights
(03/10/2011) At the end of this month it will be 30 years since Abdul Taib Mahmud came to power in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Environmentalists are using the occasion, along with new revelations, to highlight corruption and nepotism they say have characterized his regime. Chief Minister Taib and his decades-long administration are no strangers to such allegations, but a new report from the indigenous-rights group Bruno Manser Fund (BMF)—amid criticism from independent media sources, such as Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak—are adding fuel to the fire. Most recently, the report describes in great detail how the tropical timber trade in Sarawak has undercut indigenous groups while toppling some of the world's greatest rainforests, all at the expense of the Sarawak people.
Lisa Curran, personal communication
WWF Germany, Borneo: Treasure Island at Risk, June 2005 [pdf, 773 KB]