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EXPERIENCE

Wailing woods of Borneo

VIJAY SARMA

Borneo's rainforests offer a great wildlife experience without straining the wallet or the nerves.

Photo: Vijay Sarma

Magnificent: Borneo's rainforests are under threat.

THE intrepid explorer is something of an endangered species. There's been enough digging and poking, seafaring and mountaineering over the last few centuries to render wannabe Columbuses and Cooks about as relevant as their astrolabes. But even the jaded traveller, sick from feasting on wildebeest lunches at the Serengeti, will pull out some of those old Bartholomews and Langenscheits from the clutches of dust and disuse at the mention of Borneo

Hemmed in by a cirque of islands — Sumatra and Java to the west and south, and the chaotic mess of the Celebes and the Filipino archipelagos to the east — this cloistered Eden was used to a certain indulgence from Father Time but even that could do little to shield the island's chastity from the ravenous tides of commerce that swept across 17th century Asia.

Colonial history

As the colonial powers lavished the Orient with all the craft they could muster, the fate of the East Indies hung on the outcome of an unholy barter between two dominant powers — the English and the Dutch. The exchange proved somewhat ambiguous in its implications for Borneo. With neither side willing to forswear the island's charms, it was carved to pleasure the appetites of both masters. The Dutch part of this mixed legacy emerged as the Indonesian province of Kalimantan, while the English share made way for the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.

The traveller's vision of a pristine tropical paradise descends to a sobering touchdown at Kota Kinabalu's bustling airport. Sabah's capital, with its pulsating malls and flashing neon lights, is emblematic of Borneo's throbbing quest for communion with the global marketplace, as it yanks itself out of its primeval womb, sawing feverishly on the cords that oppress its flight into the first world.

Alarming impact

The impact on Borneo's precious burden is alarmingly predictable. The statistics are, for once, damningly truthful. The island's forest cover has been plundered at a rate of two million hectares per year (half the size of the Netherlands); the proud denizens of this once-pristine domain including the Orangutan, the Sumatran Rhino and the Javan Tiger have been reduced to squealing for mercy from the cardboard cut-outs of conservation campaigners. The oblivion of many lesser life forms is exceeded only by our own awareness of their existence.

Smoke signals warning against this scandalous exploitation emerged, quite literally, from a devastating forest fire in 1997, one of the worst in recent times. As Borneo reeled under the resultant haze — a persistent feature of the island's meteorology ever since — the authorities finally found the vision to rescue the few remaining feral oases from their impending despoilation. It was in one such measly strip of relatively unmolested forest that I decide to seek solace.

The Sungai Kinabatangan drains into the Sulu sea, following a leisurely meander from its origins in the mountains of Western Sabah. About 270 acres of secondary forest along the lower reaches of the river have been set apart by the Malaysian Government in a belated effort to avoid the ignominy of having to write off the country's most prominent wildlife mascot, the Orang-utan. The ride up the river in an antediluvian watercraft, salvaged from condemnation by the addition of a strident outboard motor is not quite the journey into the Heart of Darkness I had come looking for. But while romance is in short supply, the promised wildlife sightings are not. I get my first glimpse of our tree-dwelling host well before I crawl into my hut at Uncle Tan's marshy campsite. Alas, the preponderance of the giant ape in the area merits only half a cheer, for it is attributable as much to the effectiveness of conservation efforts inside the sanctuary as to habitat-loss elsewhere in the island.

The routine at Uncle Tan's follows a well-trodden path, paved to perfection by 50 years of eco-tourism in "Jungle Camps" around the world: a boat ride at the crack of dawn, a scramble across the jungle to work up the appetite for lunch, a second nautical drill in the evening to see off the sun, a nocturnal stroll to soak in the moonshine and so on...

Sightings in the wild

My multi-modal wanderings are frequently punctuated by visitations of the many brutes that pop out of the park's colourful brochure — the Orang-utan, literally the "Man of the Forest"; the Proboscis Monkey of the pendulous nose and ponderous belly; the more conservatively designed Long-tailed Macaque; Kingfishers, Darters, Herons and a bevy of other feathered friends whose Latin names, chirped in a lilting Malay accent, dredge up dark memories of high school biology.

I am unlucky with the rare Sumatran Rhino but considering that mammal's density in Bornean forests, finding a needle in the proverbial haystack would probably fetch better odds.

For the time being, Borneo's rainforests remain a well-kept secret that offers a great wildlife experience without straining the wallet or the nerves. Rampaging Land Cruisers haven't checked in yet and five-star tents are unlikely to be rolled out in a hurry but the excesses of mass tourism are not of immediate concern to Borneo's wildlife, given the far stiffer challenges posed by the palm oil and logging industries.

Indeed, it is worth considering whether greater tourist interest, despite the unwholesomeness of its collateral baggage, might not command a better valuation for Borneo's priceless ecological assets than competing claims have so far come up with. The abasement of Borneo's magnificent forests with the tinsel garb of safari circuses is hardly a heartening prospect... but preferable, nevertheless, to the shame of complete denudation.

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