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  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Night blockades. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Kelabit sedentary Dayaks, living in longhouses, rely on fishing, hunting and farming to survive. Elderly man siting near music system. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Kelabit sedentary Dayaks, living in longhouses, rely on fishing, hunting and farming to survive. New style longhouse with aspirational lifestyle that comes with development. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan with headress. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan with headress. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Using petrol generators, the Penan can afford to have electricity at night. The children like to watch bollywood movies even though they don't understand the words. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Mother and child. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan elderly couple with cat, the man still wears the old style chawat loincloths. They where nomadic a few decades ago. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Long Napir, Limbang, Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Logging roads and camps. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • August 2012: Penan native, Baru, now sedentary. Living in a wood house, traditional native Dayak structure, but not anymore the Penan sulap as he did two decades ago. This is his last home, he will not be able to move again. there is not enough forest left for him and his community. Long Gita, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region..
    149_borneo_1F2C2234.JPG
  • August 2012: Penan native hunters with deer shot with blowpipe, the body was preserved in cold river water overnight and collected by the family the next day. Near Long Gita, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. What will the future hold for them? Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations.Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region...
    136_borneo_1F2C1974.JPG
  • Twenty three years later: Penan natives, Baru standing with the brother of Banai Tebai. They lived twenty years ago in Long Tegan, but since the area was so thoroughly deforested, they moved upriver and now live in Long Gita. In a permanent traditional native design hardwood house on stilts. Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo 2012<br />
<br />
Nomadic decades ago, now settled, far from their original hunter-gatherer grounds.<br />
<br />
The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. ..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done ir
    116_borneo_1F2C2362.JPG
  • August 2012: Dayak hunters with motorbikes and shotguns get ready to go on a hunting spree. Belaga region, Sarawak, Borneo <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    089_borneo_1F2C1112.JPG
  • August 2012: Kenyah native people from the communities of Long Lewan standing on a road near their home. They are a community still standing firm against widespread deforestation. Logging companies have to negotiate with them for access and pay to extract timber. The people shown here participated on the actual human blockades during two years continuously from 1991 through 1992. The adults in the front row were children two decades ago. Long Lewan, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Some of this community lives at Long Lewan. The Bakun hydro-electric dam covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
    086_borneo_1F2C1054.JPG
  • Petrified trees and floating logs on the Bakun Dam reservoir. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    073_borneo_1F2C9627.JPG
  • Lun with pictures of herself and her deceased husband. We had walked to the blockades together twenty years ago. Sungai Asap Longhouse community where Long Geng Kenyah community was forcibly resettled after their homes where flooded by the Bakun Dam. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, an
    060_borneo_1F2C9417.JPG
  • Electricity pylons carry electricity from Bakun Dam towards Bintulu. Bangladeshi workers repairing pylons as natives aren't used to heights. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    033_borneo_1F2C0183.JPG
  • Ground level view across thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Ground level view across thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Nigel with old Penan friends. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Long Adang, Limbang, Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Nigel with same two Kelabit friends twenty six years later. <br />
<br />
The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Native leaders including Peter Kallang (white hat) from "Save Rivers" in longboat on Baram river. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Community leaders at site of Baram dam. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Prayers at Baram blockade site. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Two years of blockades. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Demonstration at blockade site. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Children in local school. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Kelabit man, Fredrick Ngareng, with gun on beach, twenty years later. Sedentary Dayaks, living in longhouses, they rely on fishing, hunting and farming to survive. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Kelabit sedentary Dayaks, living in longhouses, rely on fishing, hunting and farming to survive. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan with headress. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Generations, an old resistance fighter wearing a Penan headress and his grandson with an improvised newspaper hat. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Generations, an old resistance fighter wearing a Penan headress and his grandson with an improvised newspaper hat. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Newly built Penan longhouse. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Long Gita, Limbnag, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Mother and child. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Mother and child. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Generations of the family of Along Sega, a hard fighting resistance fighter who died a decade before. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang, Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Sinan eats sago the traditional way whilst his granddaughter sucks a lolipop. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan with headress and cat. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan elderly woman, Sigangsey, in rice paddy. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • The family of Along Saga, a hard fighting resistance fighter who died a decade before. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • The family of Along Saga, a hard fighting resistance fighter who died a decade before. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Along Saga's family. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • The family of Along Sega, a hard fighting resistance fighter who died a decade before. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan family of Along Saga, watch as I show them a video of previous times. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan elderly couple with cat, the man still wears the old style chawat loincloths. They where nomadic a few decades ago. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Long Napir, Limbang, Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan elderly couple, the man still wears the old style chawat loincloths. They where nomadic a few decades ago. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Long Napir, Limbang, Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Unspoilt primary rainforest. Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions are part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Slash and burn cultivation by native peoples to plant subsistence crops, mainly wild mountain rice. Unfortunately the Sarawak government mostly doesn't recognise pristine rainforest as ancestral lands; it is only when the settlers cut down the forest for farming, that it is recognised as their own native lands. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Logging camp. This was originally a site inside unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi and Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Ground level view across thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi and Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Ground level view across thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi and Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Ground level view across thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Ground level view across thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi and Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Aerial photography overlooking thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Aerial photography overlooking thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Aerial photography overlooking thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Near Long Akah, Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Aerial photography overlooking thousands of hectares of palm oil plantations. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Near Long Akah, Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Vast red tracts of land, long dusty roads, scar the green rainforest, carrying a constant cargo of logging trucks moving down, whilst construction machinery moves upwards for the Murum Dam project. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. <br />
<br />
The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses<br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological
    12_ngd_010_borneo_1F2C9695.JPG
  • Kenyah elderly couple from Long Lawan in floating longhouse on the Bakun Dam reservoir. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. <br />
<br />
The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses<br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
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  • August 2012: Penan natives watch as their homes are threatened yet again by so-called development. Petronas Sabah-Sarawak gas pipeline is being excavated across the Borneo rainforest ravaging native areas. Close to Long Adang, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
Penan indigenous native people, nomadic decades ago, have been forced to move up-river, to settled accomodation, far from their original hunter-gatherer grounds. The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. <br />
<br />
Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. ..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere e
    158_borneo_1F2C2569.JPG
  • Penan watch as their homes are threatened yet again by so-called development. Petronas pipeline ravaging the landscape near long Adang. Penan indigenous native people, nomadic decades ago, have been forced to move up-river, to settled accomodation, far from their original hunter-gatherer grounds. The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. What will the future hold for them? Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. ..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere e
    157_borneo_1F2C2602.JPG
  • August 2012: Energy pipelines are built for Malaysia's cash cow Petronas, whose presence ravages the beauty of the tropical rainforest. Near Long Seboyan, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo  <br />
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The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage
    155_borneo_1F2C2692.JPG
  • August 2012: Penan indigenous natives, Banai Tebai and his wife Sigangsey, are now living in a government built hut. The Penan natives moved in and set up their community there, when municipal workers vacated the outpost. Long Adang, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
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  • August 2012: Penan natives watch a panoramic television screen, powered by a petrol driven generator, at the headman's house. Long Adang, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
Penan indigenous native people, nomadic decades ago, have been forced to move up-river, to settled accomodation, far from their original hunter-gatherer grounds. The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
    142_borneo_1F2C2484.JPG
  • August 2012: Settled Penan, Baru and Menit, formerly nomadic, but still living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, deep in the rainforest near the Kalimantan border. Forced to leave their traditional hunting grounds as they have been logged and destroyed. Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region...
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  • August 2012: Baru living a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, with blowpipe and rattan rucksack, in primary rainforest twenty years later. Penan indigenous native, who was nomadic decades ago, have been forced to move up-river, to settled accomodation, far from his original hunting-gathering grounds. Near Long Gita, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. What will the future hold for them? Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations.<br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
    133_borneo_1F2C1942.JPG
  • 2012: Penan native people; Baru (LHS), brother of Banai Tebai (2nd LHS) and Rasa (middle) and extended family, (On RHS) 17+yr old Senorita Along, daughter of Den Along Sega, with her son Dimas, 1yr old. They now living a settled but smi-hunter-gatherer lifestyle in Dayak hardwood  homes. Long Gita, Limbang District, Sarawak Borneo 2012<br />
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Nomadic decades ago, have been forced to move up-river, to settled accomodation, far from their original hunter-gatherer grounds. The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. For the natives this is disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
    118_borneo_1F2C2334.JPG
  • August 2012: Penan native, Maleng, holds a picture of his brother Sinan, who is deceased. This is the first photograph he ever had of his brother. Long Napir, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
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The Limbang valley including Long Napir, a cluster of four settlements of Penan and Kelabit people, is threatened by a new hydro-electric project which will flood the entire area, displacing thousands of native people. The Murum Hydro-electric project already underway affecting the Rejang region, will displace over 24,000 Dayak native residents, destroying their longhouses and forest habitat. The dam site is located on the Murum River, in the uppermost part of the Rajang River basin, 200 km from Bintulu. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
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  • Penan watching television in wood and brick built municipal longhouse. Kelabit native people facing a mounting threat to lose their traditional lands, ancestral burial grounds, culture and habitat, once the hydro-electric dam project floods their lands. Limbang, Sarawak Borneo..The Limbang valley including Long Napir, a cluster of four settlements of Penan and Kelabit people, is threatened by a new hydro-electric project which will flood the entire area, displacing thousands of native people. The Murum Hydro-electric project already underway affecting the Rejang region, will displace over 24,000 Dayak native residents, destroying their longhouses and forest habitat. The dam site is located on the Murum River, in the uppermost part of the Rajang River basin, 200 km from Bintulu...Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
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  • August 2012: Kelabit native family with guests. Now eating at a table, something unheard of decades ago. Sinang's family in their newly built home. However their community is threatened by a Mega hydro-electric dam project which will totally flood their valley, leaving them homless. Long Napir, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
The Limbang valley including Long Napir, a cluster of four settlements of Penan and Kelabit people, is threatened by a new hydro-electric project which will flood the entire area, displacing thousands of native people. The Murum Hydro-electric project already underway affecting the Rejang region, will displace over 24,000 Dayak native residents, destroying their longhouses and forest habitat. The dam site is located on the Murum River, in the uppermost part of the Rajang River basin, 200 km from Bintulu. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
    100_borneo_1F2C1371.JPG
  • Primary rainforest. Penan indigenous native people, nomadic decades ago, have been forced to move up-river, to settled accomodation, far from their original hunter-gatherer grounds. The sound of chainsaws is not too distant, oil palm plantations are looming and the pipeline is right next door. What will the future hold for them? Long Adang and Long Gita, Limbang Sarawak, Borneo..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. ..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region...
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  • August 2012: Kenyah native woman, Gin whom I photographed in 1991 in Long Geng, now living in Long Lewan over two decades later. Long Lewan is above the waterline, whilst Long Geng is below, and was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Long Lewan, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
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Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
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  • August 2012: Once primary rainforest, but no more, petrified trees surround the artificial lake shore of the Bakun Dam reservoir. Millions of trees are dying underneath the water. Once home to the Kenyah native people at Long Geng and many other communities, and a diverse ecosystem of flora and fauna. Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo <br />
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The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    075_borneo_1F2C9608.JPG
  • Kenyah boys sitting on ballustrade look towards new concrete longhouse at Sungai Asap. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
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  • August 2012: Abu and his family twenty years after. Sungai Asap Longhouse community where Long Geng Kenyah community was forcibly resettled after their homes where flooded by the Bakun Dam. Sungai Asap, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
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Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. <br />
<br />
The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to th
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  • August 2012: A Kenyah native woman with a chainsaw and her four-wheel vehicle behind, returns from her palm oil small-holding, which helps her family to pay the rent. They were evicted from Long Geng when it was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Now they live in Sungai Asap, a small town outside the rainforest. Sungai Asap, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
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Sungai Asap is home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012. The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth
    041_borneo_1F2C9363.JPG
  • The Bakun Dam with overflow and power turbine installation. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    032_borneo_1F2C9544.JPG
  • The Bakun Dam with overflow and power turbine installation. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    029_borneo_1F2C9512.JPG
  • Night scenes. Logging carries on unabated 24hrs a day. Heavy trucks removing their huge cargos of logs from the rainforest. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    015_borneo_1F2C9760.JPG
  • August 2012: Logs make a cross. Logging carries on unabated 24hrs a day, including lifting logs out of the Bakun reservoir. Bakun, Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo<br />
<br />
The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    011_borneo_1F2C9604.JPG
  • August 2012: Once upon a time this was pristine primary rainforest. Now it has been destroyed by road building schemes for dam construction, logging and palm oil plantations. Road leading towards Bakun and Murum dam construction areas, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo 2012<br />
<br />
Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later in 2012.<br />
<br />
The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological
    004_borneo_1F2C1259.JPG
  • Apocalyptic scenes. Vast red tracts of land, long dusty roads, scar the green rainforest, carrying a constant cargo of logging trucks moving down, whilst construction machinery moves upwards for the Murum Dam project. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..The Bakun hydro-electric dam, which covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, mainly Kayan and Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irr
    001_borneo_1F2C9723.JPG
  • August 2012: Kelabit Native family household, who have Penan neighbours. The writing is on the wall when they hang up Penan blowpipes and other traditional native paraphenalia, on their lounge wall. Decades ago these blowpipes would have been used for hunting, even by the Kelabit natives. Long Napir, Limbang district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
<br />
Kelabit native people facing threats to lose their traditional lands, ancestral burial grounds, culture and habitat, once a hydro-electric dam project floods their lands. The Limbang valley including Long Napir, a cluster of four settlements of Penan and Kelabit people, is threatened by a new hydro-electric project which will flood the entire area, displacing thousands of native people. The Murum Hydro-electric project already underway affecting the Rejang region, will displace over 24,000 Dayak native residents, destroying their longhouses and forest habitat. The dam site is located on the Murum River, in the uppermost part of the Rajang River basin, 200 km from Bintulu. Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.
    104_borneo_1F2C1556.JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Blockade and international protest at Baram Dam site. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Community leaders at site of Baram dam. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Baram resistance meeting at night. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Baram resistance meeting at night. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Blockades against the Baram Dam have been a huge success, after years of campaigning and protest, the  Baram Dam in Sarawak has now been shelved. Baram Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
The first of 12 mega-dam projects, was the Bakun Dam, which produced a reservoir of 700 sqkm, the size of Singapore, whose flooding began in 2010 and displaced around 10,000 Kenyah people, in Rajang and Belaga. The second phase at Murum would displace a further 24,000 native people, and Baram some 30,000. This huge development program has been overseen by Sarawak's former Chief Minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, who is now under investigation by Malaysian authorities for corruption, and who has amassed a personal fortune of more than 35 billion US dollars. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Kelabit native people, sedentary Dayaks. Father and children in four-wheel drive vehicle during hunting expedition. Long Napir, Limbang, Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Kelabit native people, sedentary Dayaks. Hunting for spoor tracks of wild boar in forest at night with torches. Long Napir, Limbang, Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Deerheads decorate a longhouse interior walls and their horns are used to hang various garments. Kelabit Longhouse. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan about to set out on a meeting with the company that wants to log their area. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Penan with headress. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Using petrol generators, the Penan can afford to have electricity at night. The children like to watch bollywood movies even though they don't understand the words. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • The family of Along Sega, a hard fighting resistance fighter who died a decade before. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations. Limbang Sarawak Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Baru's daughter near their home. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Nightime using solar lighting. The Penan native people are learning to live a sedentary lifestyle which includes living in wooden houses, farming and fishing. They were traditionally nomadic hunter-gatherers. These days they have become forcibly settled as their hunting grounds have been largely destroyed by logging concessions and palm-oil plantations.<br />
<br />
There are only a few, difficult to find, scarce communities of semi-nomadic Penan nowadays, who live like of those of old, hidden away deep in the tropical forest, hunter-gathering, wearing loin cloth ‘chawats’, hunting wild boar with blowpipes and poison arrows, and extracting sago-root flour, their staple carbohydrate, by hand.<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Unspoilt primary rainforest. Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions are part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Logging roads. This was originally unspoilt primary rainforest. Marudi and Baram, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
These regions were were part of the world's oldest rainforest, which dates back 160 million years. The indigenous native communities’ survival depends on sustainable development of primary rainforest, a biodiversity resource, with countless insects, an array of birds and endangered species, which support one of the most diverse tropical ecosystems in the world. <br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
  • Malay civet in captivity. Limbang, Sarawak, Malaysia 2015<br />
<br />
Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991 and 2012/2014/2015. <br />
<br />
Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region
    borneo_revisited_nigel_dickinson_201...JPG
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Nigel Dickinson

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