Orang Hutans et al. vs. Elaeis guineensis

Part 2 of the visa run was up into the northern tip of Borneo – the Malaysian state of Sabah. One experience that constantly makes lists of “endangered tourism” is the chance to see orangutans (orang hutan is “forest person” in both Indonesian and Malay) in the wild. Of course, the wealth that enables Sabah to have such developed tourist infrastructure for visiting the jungle is, ironically, likely to be a product of the driving force sending the orangutans to the brink of extinction in the wild.

The “enemy” is a palm tree imported from Africa that is used to produce palm oil. On landing in Sandakan, in the far northeast corner of Borneo, it is not hard to be amazed at the scale of the monoculture that Elaeis guineensis palm oil plantations have produced in this part of the world. From Sandakan, we took a 2 and a half hour drive to the southwest and only spotted three types of land use: (a) urban areas, (b) palm oil plantations, and, only in the last 50 metres, (3) regrowing rainforest. Palm oil plantations easily accounted for 99% of that drive, and trucks hauling palm oil or palm kernel dictate the speed of travel on Sabah's highways. In other regions with severe monocultures, say the example of the midwest US and corn, there are at least occasional fields of livestock and other crops. But in Sabah, there is only palm oil trees (or clearcut forests awaiting palm oil tree seedlings).

Perhaps because of this big reliance on a monoculture, Malaysia's economy may be more at risk than the orangutans. Palm oil is useful as both a vegetable oil (as such, it's impossible to avoid in Asia) and the key ingredient for inexpensive biofuels. The world can only use so much vegetable oil, so it may have been EU biofuel mandates that led to widespread clearcutting for timber and palm oil (now spreading into the Indonesian half of Borneo). Most environmental advocates are now turning against palm oil – Cadbury in NZ made a disastrous decision to use palm oil in their chocolate, a decision that affected their image and sales so much that they switched back three months later. Hence, the boom days of Malaysia's love of palm oil may come to an abrupt end, which would be devastating to their economy.

It's not hard to be both amazed and distressed at spotting an orangutan in the wild. Basically, the plots of forest that remain are those that are unsuitable for the palm oil trees – low-lying floodplains and other swampy areas. This makes it somewhat easy to spot the wild orangutans, since they're pretty much forced to the river's edge; hence, wildlife tourism companies commonly offer you the chance to cruise up the river and “see orangutans from the comfort of a boat”. Some bits of re-growing forest here and there have yet to be felled (a second time) for palm oil, but these “native lands” are not covenanted as conservation areas, hence it is not uncommon to see an orangutan with the faint soundtrack of chainsaws in the background. It's not all doom and gloom – big NGOs are spending a lot to preserve what little natural forest remains in some of the heavily agricultural basins like the Kinabatangan River, which we visited.

At the same time, other conservation-minded charities are on the ground helping orangutans (and the other loveable macro-animal of Sabah, the probiscus monkey). These are “sanctuaries” whereby workers assist injured or orphaned animals, so you're pretty much guarenteed to see an animal at one of the feeding tmes. The sanctuary near Sandakan is the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre. While it was great to see someone taking care of the injured and orphaned animals, I did feel a bit awkward – the problem with orangutan populations is habitat destruction (not survival), thus Sepilok and other rehabilitation centres seem to be treating the symptoms of the problem as opposed to the hard (and expensive) question of preserving habitat.

Some of the propaganda for the charities points out that they are typically founded by benevolant plantation owners, who valiantly step in to stop their workers shooting a few monkeys. On reflection, it doesn't take too much speculation to spot convoluted economic logic of Bornean land use trends: (1) fell the forest for timber sales, (2) plant palm oil as a cash crop, and then, once macrofauna have become endangered, (3) set aside some poor land as a reserve for fare-paying conservationists. As more and more magazines write of the gradual extinction of wild orangutans, the price for visiting is skyrocketing – the annual rate of inflation at Uncle Tan's Wildlife Adventures (where we went) seems to be around 50%.

Needless to write, as one of those fare-paying conservationists, it was very enjoyable to see the wide variety of animals that we could spot from the boat on the Kinabatangan River. Five orangutans, lots of probiscious monkeys, hundreds of macaques, silver-leaf monkeys, Bornean gibbons, colourful birds that could be closely approached at night, owls, snakes, bright red frogs, and big monitor lizards all lazed around the riverbanks, particularly in the early morning (before the real heavy rain set in, as it was the wet season).

Photos (from top):
1 - Typical section of riverbank along the Kinabatangan River - a thin edge of secondary jungle, with clear-cut terraces ready for palm oil plantations.
2 - Orangutan at Sepilok sanctuary
3 - Macaque
4 - Harlequin tree frog
5 - Hooded pitta (easily approached to within metres at night!)
6 (below) - At lunch one day, just before playing a bit of soccer, a poisonous spitting cobra darted out onto the soccer pitch and devoured a small lizard. Despite all the guides poking around in the bush where it came out (with long sitcks, of course), the snake wasn't seen again, and the soccer continued.