NOAH JACKSON writes about his experience living with the Ba Puak Penan Tribe and how "community forestry" will help the natives' continual survival in the changing landscape of Malaysian forests.

Written by Noah Jackson on 10 Apr 2008 with 0 comments. Be the first!

Dawn

Pinholes of light seep through my blue tarp. It's a yellow-blue light, the colour of mangos and pineapple rind. Several raindrops pool above me, then flow through one of the pinholes. A small drop of water hits my eyelid. I sit up slowly and stretch under my mosquito net. The forest shelter, made of ironwood poles, creaks under my sleeping pad. The light moves down through the canopy gaps, following the river, the primary entrance to the collective of families of Ba Puak. There are ten forest shelters above the river which divides and fans two small river banks: one for each of the families that live here, and one for guests like me. All of us have a commanding view of the water source.

I lift up my mosquito net and move the kettle from the ashes of the fire to a wooden shelf stacked with split firewood. A boy walks up the riverbank with a small lizard slung around his shoulders. He's smiling. Breakfast has arrived and he greets his sister by handing her the lizard. The girl rolls the lizard across her belly. The children hand it back and forth as they walk up to their shelter and ascend the hardwood ladder. The smile transfers to some of the others up the bank; people are calling out to one another. The smile is transferred even to me as I work at starting the fire, using my parang to split some of the dry wood into smaller pieces.

The wood splinters smoke and sputter; in the forest hut it is still cool and damp from the night before. My pre-caffeinated hands are manipulating the timber with some discomfort. I notice they are still raw from being caught on some spiky rattan the day before.

I begin to start a fire and Billy, who was adopted by this community when his parents began work in a logging camp, brings some flaming sticks over to me. The wood catches fire and I settle back and wait for the coffee to boil. While waiting some of the Penan men join me. They climb up with the kids and soon the place is so crowded that our legs are all touching. This is a warm, impromptu coffee shop. It is a day when I think everything is right and peaceful in Borneo, in the forest and within me.

Dati and his monkey arrive from across the stream. I hear him talking softly and quietly to his monkey, "You eat, you eat," he chants in Penan. "You are happy, happy."

When I see him he smiles; he points up to the top of his head where his monkey seems to smile between chews of sago shoots. I laugh, the forest platform shakes, the monkey lets out a quiet scream, kids and feet reshuffle. I break out some biscuits to share and our conversation turns to food. We talk about some of their collection areas and some of the problems they are facing.

They tell me about their shortage of rattan and nipa and the changing distribution patterns of forest food. One of the men hands me a hand-drawn map: a photocopied sketch labelled with lines of scale, grids, and drawn mostly with a ruler. Ba Puak sits in the middle of the map. They explain that it is wrong, it is all wrong. They tell me that the mountain ranges are drawn incorrectly. The Penan territory has become someone else's because of a map. This, it turns out, is a map that the logging company commissioned by someone in a neighbouring community. This is a typical manoeuvre here in Sarawak. Maps often represent an uneasy power. Next, I'm shown some signs that the Penan decided to put up to mark their territory in the forest, on the edges of roads and near the boundaries of their hunting grounds.

Over canned sardines, sago, and some rice, I agree to follow them to put up their signs. A few of the people want to show me some of the areas they want to conserve, others have questions about their forest. To visit the new locations, we will be travelling through locally important hunting grounds, gathering areas, places where people collect medicinal plants, places where stories are shared and information is passed down; it will be a long walk.

Defining Community Forestry

In the North (or in the 'developing world'), we call this movement community forestry. The movement is both figurative and literal: it is the effort of communities managing and co-managing forests with other landowners. The landowners can be State, Federal, conservation organisations, timber mining, national gas companies or private. The basic theory behind this is that the people who live both within and along the forest edges have an intimate understanding of how the forest works. They also understand the dynamics of rural communities, what places need in order to survive and how solutions to this survival might be found. While living for four years in Maine and completing my undergraduate research in island forest management, I learned that this involved restoration, community projects and relying less on forest resources. I observed something similar in Montana's Swan Valley, where the people are experimenting with new logging initiatives and communities practice small scale, value added logging.

So, this movement means both groups of people sitting down at hardwood tables in forests and discussing options. It means talking and building relationships and, in both the South and the North, dealing with conflict and mediation. It also means research; documenting what exists in forests and the edges that are becoming scarcer and more important. I believe it is at these intersections where forest meets trail, where culture meets culture, that solutions can be found.

I have come to believe in this movement by joining in when stories are shared around wood stoves, working with new loggers, learning how to wield a chainsaw when I had few options of my own, going to the bars where people still confront one another about forest management and use, and talking. For someone like me, the response yields emotion: it is part of what drives me to write and photograph, seek to learn more. And by sharing this experience with others, I hope people will come to believe.

Places like these are some of the last intact patches of forest in Southeast Asia; areas where there is rich traditional knowledge, good hunting, and local culture. Healthy communities are linked to healthy forests. Building on the study of local ecological knowledge (see Conklin 1954, Folke 2004, Brosius 2004) and trends in participatory research (see work by the Ford Foundation and Chambers 1994), partnerships between communities, researchers and others allow for creative models of community forest management in Malaysia.

As Malaysia strives to be fully developed by 2020, there are growing pains. Forests are certainly stretched by development. People living in forests here have a lot to say and contribute. My work involves rigorous methods; interviews, photo elicitation and sketch mapping. However, some days it is best to just go for a walk. The more I come to work and live here with forest communities, the more I am learning about the importance of non-violent communication, how to be open and how to listen.

During some of these quiet walks and talks, I learn of the people's knowledge and their concerns about forest management. I have a hunch that one reason for the people to resist logging is because they have their own visions and dreams for their forest spaces. Future newsletters will explore forest communities in the context of their values and communication strategies, and the solutions we may arrive at together.

Walking

We got ourselves ready. I carry food for seven, but keep a lot of extra room in my pack for forest fruits, rolls of rattan, sago and anything else we might gather.

On the edge of the settlement, a woman is speaking to her daughter. Her sinewy arms are toned from the constant exercise that comes with living in the forests of the Upper Baram. She raises her voice and tells the girl, "Make sure your father brings me back some tasty shoots!"

We laugh and file down one of the forest pathways and into the river, the highway into the forest pathway and the beginning of our journey. A few minutes later we cross a large river, giggling nervously because the water is almost too high. No one, regardless of culture, wants to get wet in icy cold water. We hold on to on another. With bare feet the stones are just as slippery as when wearing sandals. Gravel and sand hit our legs while crossing. I flicked off my first hitchhiker, a leech that has somehow managed to make the crossing.

Ascending the bank and into the forest, it is a different world. We enter the primary forest and the land becomes more shadow than light. There is an understorey and several levels of canopy. Some vines known as epiphytes (plants that grow on other plants) hang from the upper layers of the canopy like yarn tangled by a kitten. There are also epiphytic orchids growing in the crannies of the canopy above, places where organic debris from the canopy have collected. These symbiotic plants literally live of nutrients and moisture from the air, creating additional habitat for pollinators.

We walk swiftly and quietly along the old narrow footpaths that we share with other mammals of the forest. The floor of the primary rainforest is rarely thick and tangled. The light begins diminishing at least 100 feet above. Measurements show that less than five percent of light from the canopy reaches the primary forest floor. As always when in such a forest, I subconsciously reach for the small flash that helps my camera focus. The area smells as if the earth is breathing, and it is; everything is either living or decaying. Life and death: inhale, exhale. Although the ground is covered by as little as two inches of soil, there are small trees attempting to grow everywhere - especially where the forest canopy above has been disturbed. Most of them won't make it.

The little undergrowth here is damp and holds in moisture like a sponge. I feel it on my pack, which has taken on a life of its own. The only comfort in a rotting backpack is that I take a little rainforest with me everywhere I go.

We are in what is called a mixed dipterocarp forest. Dipterocarp, means "two-winged seeds" in Latin. When the seeds drop from the canopy they literally twirl to the forest floor, sometimes with light reflecting off the winged leaves. They fall from the canopy, pass through the various forest layers and land with a sound that is hardly audible.

This is a place where science and a spirit for the land mix. One of the men, Imang, who has been mostly silent until now, points out a forest depression that his people will not pass through or hunt in. The spirits and dreams dictate where the people make their living under these trees.

Suddenly there is a crashing sound in the canopy and Maga grabs his blowpipe and quickly loads a poison dart. There is a soft blow in the understorey; Billy's eyes tell me the dart has struck home. We sit and wait in silence. Ten minutes pass. We cautiously creep through the forest and through the lens of my camera track down a giant Varanus lizard slowly creeping through the canopy. We wait another twenty minutes. The monitor lizard moves from one tree to another. We listen for the sound of a body crashing through the canopy but it does not come. The lizard might have been too big, or it might not have been an accurate shot. We smile; sometimes forest mammals elude even the best hunters.

Sometime later we emerge on an old forest logging road; it is half forest, half road. We walk like this for hours, the canopy gradually thins, and we make the transition to a disturbed secondary forest. Here the world looks more like the jungle of movie sets: the mark of logging. Some of the soil has been completely compacted and nothing can grow there. We take shelter under one of the trees for a few minutes.

Back in the primary forest, there is an immediate cooling. Entering this primal habitat is like crossing a border into another world. The thick canopy regulates the temperature. We cut liana vines and drink the water. Despite the hot climate the juice is cool and very refreshing. On the way there are also some wild ferns and ginger to collect. Everyone is happy. A boy just younger than me shinnies up a tree and hangs upside down. I smile at this sense of freedom and lightness. For once, I realise I can feel this way too. I drop my backpack, place the camera I'm carrying on top of it and shinny up the tree. We both hang upside down, suspended between two trees. The forest floor, a few meters below, dips and sways. I can hold my balance just long enough before the green landscape tilts and I feel my bare feet swing down, bounce off a tree branch and somehow miraculously find a tree trunk. I slide down the small tree trunk, the tree swinging precariously with me. Everything is good and then the branch snaps. I land on my butt and everyone laughs, some of them laughing so hard that they have to sit down. I know that this will be one of the stories we will review later in the evening.

Shortly after that we arrive at the old intersection, where the logging road is moving inward toward Ba Puak. We clear some brush and give the sign a fresh coat of red paint. I take a picture. And then we bend some branches and make an old forest sign, something that only a Penan can read. The message is simple:

ALL PEOPLE ARE OF ONE HEART.

Falling

The walk back home is much more painful. After we finish posting the sign, we walk silently and quickly through the forest. We take a shortcut to a logging road. Here we place a second sign. We are all tired but happy. By late afternoon, there is no more animal life to be seen, no hornbills calling. I look around for secondary forest birds and don't see any. We move into a steady striding rhythm, both sandaled and bare feet marching on hard-packed soil. The men and kids are smiling, our packs are filled with food and our bellies are filled with sago shoots. I have several extra sago shoots inside my pack. The forest vegetables are light and dense, like the feeling of a full stomach.

At a junction we place another hardwood sign; HUTAN SIMPANAN PENAN BA PUAK DILARANG MASUK. "Keep out of this forest area, this is Ba Puak Penan territory", it reads.

The sun is setting against our backs and long shadows of blowpipes, hunting spears and rattan packs are superimposed against the road. There is a glow on our faces and our backs. I watch the shapes we cast on the road surface: a people marching together in time.

From down a bank, through a clearing, we can see a Mitsubishi bulldozer pulling a log out of the forest. We stand and watch as a tree falls. It is a ranga tree, several meters across. Their wood is used for construction, long boats, and timber. My friends and I are witnessing members of a logging company moonlighting after hours. The mood changes; the group becomes tense as we watch the big dipterocarp arc downward and crash to the ground. When the tree hits, the ground shakes. There is a brief silence.

Maga and Imang look at me and shake their heads. Then they both smile, pick up their hunting spears and blowpipes once again and we continue walking. Already, they are over it. The sun is at our backs and their strong footsteps propel their shadows forward, into the future. They are a people whose ideas might survive.

Hunting Camp Time

To get back to the

forest camp

my camera goes in a dry-bag

the dry-bag goes in a boat to be sent back later

with fish from the fishing net

inside the longboat

and I go in the river

not caring about already wet clothes

floating back

bobbing

past dipterocarp seeds falling

passing banks

and places to find root

and lines of river floods

moving towards camp

I float for minutes

past one river confluence

and then another

these are the places where feet don't touch

four days up river

near the Kalimantan border

where mosquitoes shelter with us

in the waves of rain under shelter tarp

collecting like water in our pots

while parangs and smaller jungle knives

divide wild boar

and hands sting from salting fish for days ahead

and the all working and sweating

alongside the forest

with drips of fat from meat exploding

shoot from the fire like fireflies in the night

while frogs in the tributaries answer back

and days pass

two nights turn to six

and my pack molds

while I grow

and learn to distinguish the shadow of orangutan NESTS

and the eyes of snakes in the branches

and more colors of brown and green

and not to fear the

leeches that add up

into the mornings that come with the campfire

and the sound of exploding bamboo

to make a black mark that scars a gun

for luck, safety, and accuracy of hunting

I record the taboos of the hunt

collections of

river tortoise and the hornbill

and what they mean

and how to properly throw a fishing net

how to grip rocks with bare feet

and how to walk again

later still

fire ants invade camp

we are jumping and howling in the darkness

the next day, the river rises

deep fast water cools swollen feet

we are humble

quiet

mortal

as we journey from a forest with stories

and visits to sacred

graves and fruit trees and dreams hidden

in between talks about working with the land

and where the young and old men

will eventually settle

and how we will settle

what we need to have with us

the kind of world we will live in

how it is seen from the forest

and from one forest camp to another forest camp

and how different minds and thoughts

need to be understood, learned, reconciled

from the connections of

shadows and corridors of the trees

and points of light

and all the campfires

all the spaces of forest camps

I realize that the forest camp is not a dream

but a future

a real place

of forest time

an earthy knowledge

from all over the world

to be invited to a forest camp is to enter

a world that exists now

as if everything that is hunted

can be found

Citations

Brosius, P. J. (2004). What counts as local knowledge in global environmental assessments and conventions? Paper presented at the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Alexandria, Egypt.

Chambers, Robert. 1994. "The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal." World Development 4 (7): 953-969.

Conklin, H. C. (1954). An Ethnoecological Approach to Shifting Agriculture. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, 2nd Series, 133-142.

Folke, C. (2004). Traditional knowledge in social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society, 9(3), 7 [online] URL: http://wwww.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss3/art7. Ford Foundation. For Community Forestry projects, see http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/community_forestry/

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