Borneo facts
Today’s political borders of Borneo were determined by negotiations between the British and Dutch in the early nineteenth century. By drawing a line eastwards from Singapore, these two colonial powers divided Borneo into two spheres of influence: north of the line, the British could exploit the lands that became today’s Brunei, Sabah and Sarawak, south of the line the Dutch could expand into what we now know as Kalimantan. At the same time, Britain acquired Peninsular Malaya, the Dutch acquire Sumatra and the other islands of what Alfred Russell Wallace called the ‘Malay Archipelago’. These colonial divisions, like elsewhere in the world, have subsequently influenced the borders of emerging nations following independence: today, Borneo is estimated to be 73% Indonesian (Kalimantan), 26% Malaysian (Sabah and Sarawak) with the remaining 1% forming an independent Brunei.
However, then, little was known of the interior of the island and contact with local people was largely confined to coastal towns such as Pontianak and Brunei. Most of Borneo, an island of 287,000 square miles, was quite unknown to the outside world, with communication with the interior being largely confined to river transport. So, what were the British and Dutch going to exploit? The island was long thought to be ‘rich in natural resources’, for example wood, but as so much of the land was covered in forest, it was difficult to be certain what else was there. Contrast this with Borneo today, where the natural resource of timber has largely disappeared and has often been replaced with imported agriculture, mainly palm oil plantations, greatly contributing to the wealth of Indonesia and Malaysia and making them the two largest palm oil producers in the world by far. 2 Martin Parry August 2018 If we look now at Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan, it is clear that the rainforests have been exploited: in fact, largely destroyed, to produce timber for many countries. But ask a typical European citizen today, and they may still be unaware of this, to them Borneo is still a mysterious island, mostly covered with rainforest, where exotic animals such as orang utans and hornbills live. However, a debate is now emerging about the commercial activity that is bringing both huge financial profit as well as further destruction of rainforests: industrial-scale palm oil production. It is clear that the land ‘freed up’ by the logging of trees for timber is now being utilised on a huge scale for palm oil cultivation. The tragic combination of logging, clearing of indigenous people from the land, forest fires to burn off remaining vegetation and then planting of palm oil trees, has been repeated endlessly and on an industrial scale in Borneo. From a commercial point of view this made absolute sense, a ‘no brainer’, because palm oil is highly profitable, but when considering the survival of indigenous people and the rich forest ecosystems, often an absolute disaster: perhaps an irretrievable disaster.
Logging and palm oil: dangerous bedfellows?