To make ends meet in increasingly difficult financial times, many turned to cash-earning ventures, such as timber. Logging moratoria in neighboring countries, such as Thailand, China and PNG, imposed over the last few years, also spurred the demand for cheap timber from Indonesia.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Implementation of regional autonomy in 2001 seems to be contributing to the acceleration in natural resource depletion, as each province seeks to reap more profit, especially in resource-extraction-dependent areas.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Landuse pattern around a Dayak longhouse from above. The Suharto government did not recognize communal land rights, so that indigenous lands were often awarded to large corporations as logging concessions.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Seasonally flooded forest in Danau Sentarum National Park.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Entikong-Tebedu is the only official gate between Indonesia and Malaysia in Borneo, but timber traffic is rampant all along the border. Sarawak's state-owned corporation, Hardwood Timber Company Shd Bdn, has at least three checkpoints in Samatan, Tebedu and Lubuk Antu, where illegal logs from West Kalimantan filter across the border and are issued legal documents for a fee.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
West Kalimantan offers a perfect site of "timber laundering" to Sarawak, as transport access via land and sea is convenient. An estimated 70% of Sarawak's annual timber production originates in illegal operations across the border.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
10% of the world's remaining tropical forests is found in Indonesia. Forests in this country are disappearing at a rate of 1.7 to 2 million hectares each year, due to logging, land conversion for plantation and agriculture, and fires.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
The four Kalimantan provinces (Indonesian Borneo) contain 30% of all Indonesian forests.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
"Illegal" logging accounts for 70-90% of Indonesia's timber production, but large companies, military and government are the main perpetrators and profiteers. This photo of an illegal logging site was taken near an old orangutan nest.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Many communities near the border still lead fairly traditional lives and are primarily subsistence farmers, with supplemental cash income from rubber, pepper and timber.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Forests can still be found - in the Bornean interior.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
When the monetary crisis hit Indonesia in 1997, the currency value dropped more than five-fold. Many struggled as prices of basic goods skyrocketed, eventually leading to the overthrow of the New Order regime. Some farmers on the Mal-Indo border, however, profited from the devaluation of rupiah, as they sold pepper and other goods across the border in Malaysian ringgits.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
In the lowland forest.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Rivers provide easy transportation routes for logs. Timber logged over the dry season flood the waterways when the rain starts to fall.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Inside the swamp forest.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
This creative use of Malaysian snack wrappers in an Indonesian longhouse shows the proximity of the Malaysian and Indonesian economies in this area. Many investors from Kuching and Sibu in Sarawak take advantage of the rupiah-ringgit exchange rate to buy cheap logs from West Kalimantan.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
State landuse planning map shows that most areas in the forest-rich provinces are allocated as production forests (except blue - national parks - and dark green - protected forests - areas). "Protected forest" actually means "reserved for future logging".
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda. / May 3rd, 2006
A World Bank report in 2001 warned that, given the current deforestation rate in Indonesia, forests in Sumatra would disappear by 2005 and in Kalimantan by 2010.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
Every day, 60 to 80 trucks filled with illegally logged timber cross the border from Badau to Lubuk Antu. From loggers in villages to local government officials to the police and military, this is a lucrative business for everyone involved at all levels, making illegal logging extremely difficult to control.
courtesy of Noriko Toyoda / May 3rd, 2006
As a result, less than half of West Kalimantan is now forested (Data Dep.HutBun, 1999).
The Borneo Project is sponsored by Earth Island Institute, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) organization.
The Borneo Project, Earth Island Institute, 2150 Allston Way, Suite 460, Berkeley, CA 94704
borneo [at] borneoproject.org, Voicemail: 1-510-859-9100 ext. 212