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Kalimantan ' why care?
Fair enough â the lush photos and quirky paintings, the splendid layout and attention to detail make this a fine addition to Green literature
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Fair enough ' the lush photos and quirky paintings, the splendid layout and attention to detail make this a fine addition to Green literature. The plight of orangutans facing death by firearms or gradual extinction through loss of habitat is reason enough to care.
But if these things are so important, why are the Australasian contributors to this lovely book living in Bali and Lombok? Their commitments to Kalimantan (The Indonesian portion of Borneo) are genuine, but like US forces in Syria, their boots aren't on the ground, just where their talents might be even more effective.
Readers who can't get to Borneo, the world's third-largest island, can show their concern by buying this book, as the author cheekily suggests, though it won't be for the writers' personal gain.
None of the contributors got paid. Should there be any profits, they will go to three charities, two of which are based in Kalimantan.
Looking for Borneo includes a handy list of internet links under the heading, 'What Else Can You Do?' It's a good idea, but how effective are these likely to be against the big dollar developers clearing the bush for oil palm plantations, deaf to the conservationists concerns?
Here's an answer, though hopefully more of a call to action rather than passive acceptance: This review was written under a blanket of haze blown across the Java Sea from the illegal burning of forest trash in Kalimantan, a practice that was banned long ago, yet continues every year to smother this country and its neighbors.
Another reality: Borneo, Asia's largest island, is shared by three nations ' Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, the latter controlling almost three quarters of the land mass. In 2007, the tripartite Heart of Borneo conservation agreement was declared at the urging of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Splendid decision ' but this year the WWF reported that 10 percent of the supposedly protected forest, what the organization calls 'Asia's last great rainforest', has been put to the chainsaw since pen scratched paper.
Last year, education consultant Dr Mark Heyward published Crazy Little Heaven, an account of his 17-day cross-Kalimantan journey taken almost two decades earlier. Looking for Borneo is an extension and enlargement of that account, embellishing Heyward's earlier prose with photos by David Metcalf, landscapes so juicy the sap runs, portraits so clear the sweat has odor.
Then there's Khan Wilson's surrealist artwork featuring manga-eyed maidens, their tilted heads resting on well-upholstered bosoms.
These are also supposed to have been inspired by Heyward's words, though the link is tenuous and the colors more interior than exterior. The style is Bali-spa hedonistic and repetitious, but the pictures are joyous enough, even if out of place.
Another addition is a 14-track CD featuring the songwriter and polymath Heyward, who plays skilled guitar in what Dalton calls 'kampung folk rock'. It's music meant more for parties than gentle listening, but the ballads, when allowed to rise above the backing band, encourage contemplation.
So, altogether, Looking for Borneo is a substantial package assembled for good reasons. The problem is its structure. The early parts of the book don't coalesce, despite Borneo being the central theme. The words are about a man's brief mid-life venture into the heart of the unknown (real and personal) with a few mates last century ' a tale already told in his earlier book
It's a pity that Heyward didn't revisit his walkabout and record his impressions anew now that his vision has matured and his understanding has broadened. Then readers would have before-and-after examples to accentuate their wrath at the despoliation.
Toward the end we get the sobering update: 'East Kalimantan is the province with the highest gross regional product in Indonesia, yet a quarter of a million of its people are classified as poor.'
Heyward proposes eco-tourism, a ban on new plantations and the boycotting of palm oil products as possible solutions, but rightly recognizes that there will be no change without 'strong political will ['¦] and better law enforcement.'
Looking at how national parks are managed in the rest of the world might help, but not all overseas strategies survive transplantation to countries where the politics are brutally corrupt and where personal gain regularly trumps national interest.
Indonesian solutions have to be found for Indonesian problems ' and if the powers in Jakarta don't care about their environment and citizens, then why should others?
Maybe it's too late. Heyward shows how Dayaks are now divided between urban dwellers and those in the bush; missionaries have planted alien faiths; technology and a cash economy are impacting forest folk.
No doubt some will prefer clicking files in air-conditioned offices to blowpiping proboscis monkeys in the dripping canopy, but if their environment is preserved, the Dayaks will have a chance to choose how and where they live, which is a basic human right.
It's not just the traditional occupiers and users of Borneo's riches who will then benefit. The whole world will literally breathe easier if this great green lung survives. That makes it a matter too important to leave to the cabals in Menteng, so they also need to read this book.
' Photos by duncan graham
