words: Dave Avran/Anthony Sebastian, images: Veronica Ng/as credited
As
kids, we grew up reading Grimm's Fairy Tales, where the hero (who is always a
Prince) finds himself embroiled in an exciting adventure in an enchanted forest.
Think Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, The Grateful Prince, Rumpelstiltskin and even
Robin Hood. Think strange and unusual people, magical trees and speaking
animals.
Thanks
to a kind invitation by the good people at the Sarawak Society for Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) to attend and cover this year’s edition of
Animals for Asia International Conference 2015, frigglive discovered Malaysia’s
very own enchanted forest right here in Borneo.
We will let the very eloquent
and suave Anthony Sebastian of Borneo Futures tell you this fascinating “Once upon a time” story.
An
Introduction to Natural Sarawak
by
Anthony Sebastian
Photo
credit: Anthony Sebastian
Few
places on earth evoke an overwhelming sense of the mystical unknown. Borneo is one such place. Just north of where
the equator slices through this great island lies Sarawak, the largest of
Malaysia’s thirteen states. Historically part of the Brunei Sultanate, it came
under the rule of the White Rajahs in 1841. The rule of the Brookes ended in
1946, and Sarawak was ceded to Britain as a colony. In 1963 Sarawak, together
with the Federated States of Malaya, Singapore and British North Borneo (Sabah)
formed the nation of Malaysia.
To
picture this land is to journey through a myriad of landscapes that have
evolved over millions of years. Humankind’s hand is evident. In fact, the
people of Sarawak are as fascinatingly varied as its animal and plant life,
with more than sixty discernable cultures speaking an equally diverse range of
languages and dialects.
Today,
the visitor to Sarawak more often than not arrives from the skies, which gives
him/her a bird’s view of the ocean gently giving way to land. White-fringed
breakers, in lace-like ribbons, extend over a long distance before the bright
sands of the shore appear. This tells of shallow waters, the first clue to the
intriguing story of Borneo’s natural history.
It
was only at the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 million years ago, that land
emerged in this part of the world, from the Tethys ocean, along the edge of a
great fault in the earth’s mantle. This volcanically active fault is known
today as the Southeast Asian ring-of-fire. It extends from the eastern Himalaya
through Myanmar, down the Andamans, Nicobars, Sumatra and Java, curving around
through the Lesser Sunda islands and Sulawesi up into the Philippines. By the
late Tertiary (5 million years ago), the world basically looked as it does
today, sculptured by ice and water over the 1.8 million years known as the
Quaternary Period.
Photo
credit: Typhoon Studio for the Sarawak Government
Borneo
was part of a large landmass named after a great, now extinct, river called the
Sunda. The Mekong in Indochina, the Pahang in the Malay Peninsula and the
Rejang in Borneo all share elements of a similar fish fauna, a legacy from being
tributaries of the Sunda. Sundaland, the continental shelf under the South
China Sea, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra and Borneo gets it name from this
river.
As
warming climates began to melt the great ice caps, and the seas began to rise.
This rise, based on some calculations, was over 100m, drowning much of the
low-lying lands in this part of the world. Only the highest peaks remained
above water, giving rise to the vast archipelago that is Southeast Asia today.
The largest of these is Borneo.
Soils
washed down from the hills began to reclaim land from the shallow seas, forming
the vast coastal flatlands. The warm and wet tropical climate encouraged life
in every form, and plants began to proliferate on this new land. The
ever-present influence of water in the flatlands had a profound influence on
life. The plants and animals of the coasts embarked on a course of adaptation,
which over time, lead to evolutionary change in species. The result is one of
the highest levels of wetland endemism in the world.
Photo credits: MySabah.com
Vast
areas of Sarawak’s coastal plains consist of peat. Some of these deposits of
peat soils reach depths of over 20m. Early explorers and naturalists, when
faced with these swamp forests and its inky black waters, felt a sense of
helplessness that endures today through their writings… “inhospitable
mosquito-ridden swamps, impenetrable tangles of vines and creepers, soils so
soft that even the trees avoid touching them, developing stilt roots to keep
themselves above the sticky sludge….”
The
coastal water-logged flatlands end at the foothills, where tropical rainforest
takes over. Humbling, is the term that comes to mind in the presence of the
80m-tall rainforest giants. The term rainforest evokes an image of a lofty
world of impenetrable jungles and never-ending rain. Lofty indeed it is, but
the forest floor is a surprisingly open carpet with dead leaves, shade-loving
shrubs, ferns and palms. Unlike savanna grasslands, where wildlife is spread
out over vast expanses on a single plane, the rainforest is multi-dimensional,
its wildlife spread out both horizontally and vertically.
Rising
above the foothills, one enters the world of the Bornean mountains, a special
world indeed. Central Sarawak resembles the long curving strips of whale
baleen, ripples in the earth’s crust as tectonic plates crushed against each
other. These natural troughs have given rise to hundreds of rivers and streams,
which stitch the landscape together. The Rejang, at 760km, is Sarawak’s longest
and largest river system, closely followed by the Baram (635km). Rivers in
Sarawak exhibit a wide range of character. The clear torrential streams and
cascades in the hills gradually change into slow meandering silt-bearing
behemoths, depositing their load in their deltas.
Photo
credits: Robert Tseu
Mount
Murud is the highest peak in Sarawak. At 2,422m, it is still dwarfed by Mount
Kinabalu, the highest point on Borneo at 4,101m. However, both are peaks on the mountain spine
of Borneo, stretching northeast-southwest across the island. These highlands
are home to an amazing array of plant and animal life found nowhere else on
earth. Two-thirds of Borneo’s endemic birds, and one-third of its endemic
mammals, are confined to these mountains.
Another
feature in Sarawak is karst, or more commonly called limestone outcrops. The
remnants of ancient coral reefs, weathering and water have sculptured the reefs
into spectacular formations. Caves are a feature of karst, and Sarawak boasts
the largest in the world underneath Gunung Mulu. The Niah and Bau caves have
preserved archeological records of early life on Borneo, as well as a host of
unique plant and animal life.
Offshore
islands add another dimension to Sarawak’s landscape. They give an insight, in
miniature, into nature at work. Reef formations, mass nesting of sea turtles,
stepping stones on migratory journeys and pristine landscapes are preserved on
these islands.
Leaving
scientists to their investigations, we must be content in our knowledge that
Borneo’s lifeforms have confounded and astonished the world for over two
centuries. More answers will undoubtedly be forthcoming, but we do not have to
wait to appreciate this amazing diversity of life. We do however have a
responsibility to preserve this complexity of life for posterity, to enable
future generations to unlock nature’s mysteries.
Photo credit: www.sarawakforestry.com
Sarawak’s
animal and plant life is renowned for its diversity and endemism. An example is
tropical heath forest, a remnant of ancient Sundaic forests. It is known
locally as Kerangas, meaning where-rice-will-not-grow. Asia’s only great ape,
the Orang Utan, and the Proboscis Monkey, the largest semi-aquatic monkey in
Asia, are also found here. In spite of what we already know, enough remains
undiscovered to keep scientists busy forever!
Nowhere
is this better underscored than in humankind’s history itself. The discovery of
prehistoric human presence in limestone caves at Niah early in the last century
opened a treasure trove of jigsaw pieces from our past. We know now that humans
were present on Borneo 40,000 years ago. Even more fascinating is that the world
they lived in was strikingly different from the Borneo we know today. Their
“village” at Niah, now about 30km inland, was on the coast then. The climate
was drier and cooler, with a mean temperature of 21ºC. The open landscape was
home to spectacular megafauna which included a giant pangolin (now extinct),
elephants, rhinoceros and tapir.
Interest
in Sarawak’s natural history dates back almost two centuries. Explorers have
left a legacy in their writings. Alfred Russell Wallace collected feverishly in
Sarawak, as well as other parts of Southeast Asia. His keen sense of
“relationships” between the strange new lifeforms he encountered took him down
a path that led to our understanding of what the modern world today calls
“evolution”. It is now acknowledged that the theory of evolution, widely
attributed to Charles Darwin, was in fact first conceptualized by Wallace. It
is less known that Wallace first wrote his “take” on evolution here in Sarawak
in 1855, called “Law of Sarawak”.
The
fascination with Sarawak continues today. The Giant Pangolins may have
disappeared, but new species are being described. The mystical allure of this
land is continues as we revel in new discoveries and reflect on past splendour,
in a place which was never as we know it today, and will carry on its journey
of evolution in spite of us. This is the marvel of nature, and we can but enjoy
the small portions assigned to us in this great journey.
Labels: #afaborneo2015, Anthony Sebastian, Asia for Animals 2015, Borneo, Fauna, Flora, Nature, Sarawak, SSPCA, Wildlife
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