Leaders endorse Heart of Borneo declaration

’tis is a great day in environmentalism, my friends:)

12 Jan 2007
Cebu, Philippines – A historic agreement to conserve the “Heart of Borneo” was officially endorsed today by the heads of the three Bornean governments — Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia.

A statement by leaders attending the Summit of the Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines – East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) outlined the importance of one of the most important centres of biological diversity in the world, covering approximately 220,000km2 of equatorial rainforests and numerous wildlife species.

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The agreement, endorsed at the 3rd BIMP-EAGA Summit being hosted by the Philippines, is a lifeline for the people and wildlife of Borneo that are threatened by increasing deforestation on the island. The Heart of Borneo is one of only two places on the planet where rhinos, elephants and orang-utans coexist. Since 1996, deforestation due to logging, forest fires and forest conversion for plantations across Indonesia has increased to an average of 2 million hectares per year, and today, only half of Borneo’s original forest cover remains.

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Borneo is home to 13 primate species, more than 350 bird species, 150 reptiles and amphibians and around 15,000 species of plants, and continues to be the source of many new discoveries — three species have been found every month over the past ten years alone.

read more of the news from wwf.

hopefully, due action is followed through with the declaration. there is certainly a treasure load to conserve in the heart of borneo.

take this from one traveler who has been to places (including part of the heart of borneo) and has seen for herself the environmental as well as social poverty caused by deforestation. now you can call me a tree hugger if you want to (oh please darlings, been there, done that!) but in all honesty, the amount of weird and wonderful discoveries made in this part of the world is pretty amazing.

 

dozens of new species found in borneo rainforests

i access the internet after days of travel and am throughly excited to learn that:

• At least 52 new species of animals and plants have been identified this past year on the island of Borneo.
• The discoveries, described in a report compiled by WWF, include 30 unique fish species, two tree frog species, 16 ginger species, three tree species and one large-leafed plant species.
• Many of these creatures new to science are amazing: a miniature fish – the world’s second smallest vertebrate, measuring less than one centimetre in length and found in the highly acidic blackwater peat swamps of the island; six Siamese fighting fish, including one species with a beautiful iridescent blue-green marking; a catfish with protruding teeth and an adhesive belly which allows it to literally stick to rocks; and a tree frog with striking bright green eyes.
• For plants, the ginger discoveries more than double the entire number of the Etlingera species found to date, and the tree flora of Borneo has been expanded by three new tree species of the genus Beilschmiedia.

read the full report.
learn more about the heart of borneo.

 

the people who organised my trip to east malaysia thought that it would be funny to drive through the two pieces of brunei. i was game.

… because it meant that i would get four stamps on my rather blank passport in a single day:)

we drove south up, from miri.

a toll, shortly after the sungai tujuh immigration checkpoint at kuala belait. this is the one and only toll in brunei. or so that i was told. brunei has a toll? whoever thought…

the exit (entrance, if you are coming from the other direction) of the southern end of brunei, as we journey northwards towards limbang in sarawak. can you believe that the two bits of brunei is really not joined to each other by land at all. i’ve always thought that somewhere at the tip of something, the people would be able to cross over, but no. even for local bruneians, to get from one piece to another, they are required to go through customs and immigration.

no parking here… or here.

boards promoting the use of the malay language is found all along the road on southern brunei. every few kilometers, there is one. also, every signboard is written in malay and jawi. they are pronunced the same way and mean the same thing.

it is interesting to me that they refer to the language as bahasa melayu and not bahasa melayu brunei. very p.c. from the linguistic point of view. all that jazz about bahasa malaysia or bahasa indonesia or bahasa melayu singapura (which i am almost convinced is a dead language) are really all dialects of the same mother language. it is linguistically wrong, therefore, to even refer to them as different languages. but they are anyway. in reference. for purely political reasons.

the linguist digressed.

meat is one of those things that needs to go through customs around here. brunei is also one of those countries which prohibits alcohol to be sold, entirely. so the locals who want to get their high would cross over at this checkpoint, buy their booze on the other side of the border and bring it in. there are, naturally, a number of watering holes on the other side of this checkpoint.

to get to the other piece of brunei, we had to drive through limbang town…

… which has the weirdest signages in their toilets…

… the scariest dentists…

… and i swear has the best damn roti bakar in the world!

back on the road. this is at kuala lurah, muara. i’m standing on malaysian soil. yonder the river, brunei. just like that.

and yet, for just that distance, we had to ferry our car over.

the northern piece of brunei has rivers on both sides. which means two ferry rides, each lasting a total of thirty seconds, tops.

if your car’s got an anchor, your can’t drop it here. at puni. in temburong. on the northern checkpoint of brunei. yea, the place’s got a sicky name.

eight hours on the road. we arrive in lawas.