Primarily Within the Rainforest

So, do you want the statistics? Sure you do! (If you really, really don't, just skip to the next paragraph...) The Bornean rainforest is 130 million years old, the oldest in the world. It contains 15,000 species of flowering plants, 3,000 species of trees. 361 brand-new, never-before-recorded species of animals and plants were identified just between 1994 and 2004, and scientists believe there are still many thousands more. It's home to the world's largest flower, orchid, moth, python, and carnivorous plant. More gliding animals live here than anywhere else on earth - flying squirrels, lizards, foxes, colugos, frogs, and (eeeeeeeeh!!) snakes. This rainforest contains more species of plants than the the entire continent of Africa. More than half of the dipterocarp trees (them's the typical tropical rainforest trees) are endemic to Borneo, and since I have moved here, I've used the word endemic more times than in my entire previous existence... There are 420 species of birds. One-fifth of the mammals on the island aren't found anywhere else in the world. Bio-diversity? This is it, right here. Except it's under attack. Sixty years ago, Borneo was around 95% forested. It's less than 45% now, and a large proportion of the deforestation has been in Sabah. In the 1980s and 90s, logging was the most intensive ever seen in the world - per hectare, around 23 cubic metres of wood is harvested. In Borneo, it was up to 240 cubic metres. Another reason for the deforestation, and I think I hear you crying in unison out there, PALM OIL! Fancy that. Clearing for plantations accelerated in the 1990s, and by 2004 900,000 hectares of previously forested Sabahan land was under intensive, monocultural cultivation. That's one-eighth of all available Sabahan land, dedicated to a single crop, largely owned by West Malaysian and non-Sabahan companies. Where do forests stand against this? Well, approximately 16% of forests in Sabah are under some form of protection. 84% of forests are therefore legally allowed to be exploited and degraded with no controls, and there's currently no obligation to replant any of the degraded land. The 16% that is protected is still under threat from illegal logging. 

Okay! Well done if you actually read all that! If you did, you now understand a little of what I felt on entering Tabin Wildlife Reserve, where a buffer zone of secondary forest surrounds a core area of, breathe deeply, virgin primary rainforest.

Passing the border between secondary and primary rainforest - for the first time in my life - the temperature drops dramatically. The trees are enormous - something I had already glimpsed from the lone trees left standing in plantations, towering above the palms - and there are 50m lianas trailing from 100m trees. Did I mention it's also one of the tallest rainforests in the world?

I have mixed feelings about this visit. It's sad that we have to be driven to look at rainforest in Borneo - it brings to mind the kids' poem by Alan Brownjohn about going to see the last rabbit in the world. All this way, even in wild Borneo, just to see a patch of undisturbed forest...

But there's also hope: all along the road into the core reserve, there are little blue ribbons tied to sticks in the ground. These mark the planting of seedling trees, about every 3 metres, and we're told that, given a hundred years, the whole area will be almost back to the way it was before it was so rudely demolished by humans.

We Are Going To See The Rabbit

We are going to see the rabbit,

We are going to see the rabbit.

Which rabbit? ask the children.

The only rabbit,

The only rabbit in England,

Sitting behind a barbed-wire fence

Under the flood lights, neon lights,

Sodium lights,

Nibbling grass

On the only patch of grass

In England, in England

(Except the grass by the hoardings

Which doesn’t count).

We are going to see the rabbit

And we must be there on time.

First we shall go by escalator,

Then we shall go by underground,

And then we shall go by motorway,

And then by helicopterway,

And the last ten yards we shall have to go

On foot.

And now we are going

All the way to see the rabbit,

We are nearly there,

We are longing to see it,

And so is the crowd

Which is here in thousands

With mounted policemen

And big loudspeakers

And bands and banners,

And everyone has come a long way.

But soon we shall see it

Sitting and nibbling

The blades of grass

On the only patch of grass

In – but something has gone wrong!

Why is everyone so angry,

Why is everyone jostling

And slanging and complaining?

The rabbit has gone,

Yes, the rabbit has gone,

He has actually burrowed down into the earth

And made himself a warren, under the earth,

Despite all these people.

And what shall we do?

What can we do?

It is all a pity, you must be disappointed,

Go home and do something else for today,

Go home again, go home for today.

For you cannot hear the rabbit, under the earth

Remarking rather sadly to himself, by himself,

As he rests in his warren, under the earth:

“It won’t be long, they are bound to come,

They are bound to come and find me, even here.”

Alan Brownjohn