The Lost Forest
Page 19
Chapter 19
WITH THE PENANS
‘The positioning of the base camp is essential for the success of our work but what is more important is that our goal is of the utmost secrecy. Security is the key word. What I’ve got in mind is that the operation is described as a forest ecology survey, you know botanists, biologists and all that. How long we can keep the lid on it with so many people involved is another matter but once we are established we can set up a tight security system,” said Pierre Ros.
‘That sounds fine to me as long as we are on the Indonesian side.’
‘That’s clear.’
They looked at the map that Aris had unfolded. ‘Look here on the Indonesian side, to the east of the Pegunung and Kapuas Hilir watershed, there’s a village called Semitau, we can reach it by taking the road up from Sintang, that’s 450 kilometres from Pontianak with daily flight connections,’ Aris said as he pointed to the town on the map of Borneo.
‘Sounds good,’ Ennis replied as he peered closer to the map putting his finger on a small red sign the form of an encircled plane, indicating a small airport next to Semitang.
‘But it’s still a long way from the site?’
‘Well, there’s a kind of road that goes all the way to a village called Nangabadau just near the border but its not very good, a long rough ride. It’s better if we go by boat, up through the lakes to a village called Lubukkaro, about thirty kilometres, a couple of hours. We could use it as our base. My man tells me there’s a longhouse further upstream, a couple of kilometres down from the cave according to our GPS reading it’s just on our side of the border. It takes about three hours from Semitau, the other alternative is by road, unfortunately it’s very dangerous with logging trucks, especially in the rain, almost impracticable for light vehicles in places.’
‘It’s not far from the Trans-Borneo railway project trace, but that’s years away,’ he said laughing, ‘next to the Lanjak Entimau Reserve in Sarawak. There’s also a huge logging industry in the region, most of it illegal.’
‘Can’t they stop it?’
‘No, but in any case it won’t continue for much longer, for the simple reason they’ll run out of trees to fell!’
‘What about the local people?’
‘You’ll see for yourself when we get there! You’ll also get a glance at how your prehistoric men lived when you meet the Penans!’
Before large scale logging began a large part of Borneo was the home of many Dayak tribes, who depended on the forest for their daily needs, some more than others, amongst these were the Penans, a nomadic people living in totally harmony with the forest.
Ancestral traditions and agreements between different Penan tribes had established over centuries areas of sustainable forest that provided them with all their needs. When the government set up forest concessions, sold for exploitation to logging companies, the existence of Penans was totally ignored, with their tradition of sustainable forest use and their ancient land rights. Soon, millions of hectares of forest disappeared under the chain saw and bulldozer, a great part of it Penan land.
The Penan, hunter gatherers of the forest, had highly developed hunting skills with a knowledge of medicinal and edible plants totally unknown to so called civilised cultures. Their every need was supplied by their forest.
The loggers had forced most of them to abandon their ancient nomadic tradition to live at best in forest longhouses or worse in the dismal shacks of the shanty towns that had sprung up on the edges of Borneo’s towns and villages.
In spite of their willingness to cooperate with the logging companies and palm oil planters establishing zones where the forest would remain untouched, they were completely ignored and their forest lands devastated for the greater good of the government in Jakarta and the profits of foreign logging companies whose headquarters were in Singapore, Taipei, Seoul or Tokyo, whose products were sold to consumers in Europe and the USA.
They sat on the rattan mat under the flicker of the oil lamps as they listened to the old headman recount the tragedy of his people.
‘Before, we were like the creatures of the forest going wherever we chose. We built out home wherever we wanted, when we wanted to move we moved, it was our way and had always been. We looked for a place that pleased us, where would be happy, where there was plenty of game and sago palms, near the river with good water.
‘My father taught me to hunt using a bamboo blowpipe. First bats, using darts without poison, just one prick of poison and you would die. Then I hunted squirrels and monkeys, high in the trees, after deer and wild pigs, some were big, so big they were impossible to carry alone. Even if a child went hunting he would come back with meat, food was everywhere. Today we live in a longhouse and have to plant food before we can eat.
‘When I was a child the sound of the hornbill and other birds filled the forest, the monkeys and insects, the rain falling on the leaves. The sound of the forest was the sound of our home where our forefathers had listened to the very same sounds,” the guide said translating the old Tuay’s words.
‘Once, long ago, when I was a boy we were happy,’ he paused to sip from his small glass of tuak rice wine. ‘Today life has changed; the sound of the forest is drowned by the noise of chainsaws and bulldozers. We ask ourselves about our future, that of our children, where will they live? How will they live? In the dirt of the villages? For us the sound of the chainsaw is the chatter of death.’
There was a long silence and as stared into the fire and they waited for him to continue.
‘My people weep as they see our home destroyed by strangers, transforming life into dead red earth.’
Ennis was invaded by a deep sense of guilt as a foreigner, a European, a member of the consumer society that had closed its eyes to the fate of the peoples of the forest.
‘Strangers came onto our land without even a word to us, using our forest paths, muddying our rivers and streams, devastating our home and land, stealing our rattan, destroying our fruit trees.’
It was the old Tuay’s role to protect his family from enemies, spirits and individuals of evil intent, his helplessness verged on despair.
‘The forest is the home of our ancestors, our home, our longhouse. We have always lived here, we have never known anything different. My father was born here and his father and father’s father before him was born in our beloved forest, where they hunted wild pig, hunted birds, and hunted deer. Our forest overflowed with food, it was our treasure house, our happiness.’