Borneo on the Brink

By Suzanne Hurt

In northeast Borneo flows a mighty brown river called the Kinabatangan. Endangered estuarine crocodiles sun themselves on logs in the river, Asian elephants - one of the world's most endangered species - bathe in its waters, and Sumatran rhinos, trotting on the edge of extinction, are believed to still roam the area. It is a wild place where all the shades of green on the planet weave themselves into a tapestry of leaves, fronds, vines and blades stretched between earth and sun.

It is also a place where wildlife and traditional lifestyles face mortal threats. Not far from the river, rows of cultivated oil palms stand like exclamation marks where rain forest once leaned against the Bornean sky. Here and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, forests are being logged, cleared and converted into agricultural land as developing Asian countries try to pump cash into struggling economies.

Scientists consider the Kinabatangan rain forest a natural heritage area of international importance, although much remains to be learned about the plants and animals that live there. In addition to crocodiles, elephants and rhinos, its wilderness harbors barking deer, bearded pigs, clouded leopards and flat-headed cats. It is one of a handful of places in the world known to contain at least ten species of primates. Bulbous-nosed proboscis monkeys, a threatened species found only on Borneo, gravitate to the riverbank each night. Endangered orangutans build large nests in trees. Sharks and rays swim in its waters.

The forests of Southeast Asia are dominated by dipterocarps, a family of tall trees not found on other continents. It is in these forests, which support wild fruit trees that animals feed on, where biodiversity is most intense. The Kinabatangan floodplain is the largest remaining forested floodplain in Sabah, a former British colony on Borneo that is slightly smaller than Ireland. The region includes saltwater mangrove forests, riverine forests, forests that grow on limestone outcrops, swamp forests and rich stands of dipterocarps.

Since the 1970s, industrial agriculture, as introduced by Westerners, has been Southeast Asia's primary source of deforestation, according to Dennis Dykstra, president of the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon. "Deforestation has accelerated quite a lot, mainly due to oil palms, which have become incredibly profitable in the last five or six years," he said.

Oil palms, which bear fruit used to make cooking oil, are a cash crop that thrives in poor soil. They don't require a huge investment, yet they yield a fast turnaround. And demand for palm oil is growing rapidly, Dykstra said, especially in developing countries.

By 1996 more than 50 percent of the Kinabatangan area's ancient forest had been cleared and replaced by oil palms, which prosper on dry, flat or gently sloping ground. "Virtually, all such areas have been converted to oil palm already," said Geoffrey Davison, director of the World Wide Fund for Nature's Sabah operations.

Converting forest to agriculture is the primary reason large mammal populations are shrinking, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Extensive agriculture has led to soil erosion and contamination of surface water and possibly underground water via insecticides, herbicides and fertilizers. As the forest rapidly vanishes, so do the habitats that support wild creatures, and so do the natural resources that provide clean water, food and income for locals. People who have been living along the Kinabatangan for decades say elephants are eating more crops, and river catches are dwindling.

In May the World Wildlife Fund launched a program to protect Kinabatangan forests and the living things that depend on them. With the lower Kinabatangan newly recognized as a nature tourism destination, the group's Partners for Wetlands Programme would create a wildlife corridor by establishing a 66,690-acre sanctuary made up of 30 percent swamp forest, 40 percent dipterocarp forest and 30 percent mixed forest. Several sections have already been protected. The program also seeks to form alliances between conservationists and development interest by establishing sustainable-use projects and fostering awareness that a forest's best asset is its ecological contributions to the world.