BORNEO: LAST REFUGE FOR ENDANGERED WILDLIFE
Borneo had been a dream of ours since our 6-month trip when we ran out of energy to tackle its adventures at the end of our trip, opting instead to spend some well-deserved rest and relaxation on the beach. We believed that Borneo would be in the ‘neighbourhood’ to visit from Sydney at a later time. Well, neighbourhood may be a bit of a stretch, since the flight for us was only 2 hours less than from Europe, but as we promised ourselves last year, we were back for a short and sharp taste of Borneo. Szilveszter in particular was looking forward to spotting orangutan in the wild as his 30th birthday present!
Borneo is split between 3 countries: Malaysia on the North, Indonesia on the Southern part, and Brunei, a small wedge in the middle of the Malay sector. The island looks deceptively small on the map of Southeast Asia, but is actually larger than France, only with much poorer infrastructure. So since we only had a single week, we decided to focus on a small bit of the Northeast Malaysian corner, which would give us the richest experience while limiting the amount of travel needed.
As the Malaysian part was under British rule for over centuries, the general level of English spoken in the country is quite good - everyone we had interaction with was able to communicate at least on an acceptable level. Generally, people were also very nice and welcoming with us, and perhaps for the first time in South East Asia, no one tried to fool us! It was refreshing and very positively surprising! Another realization was that both the public transport and people in general were accurate and turned up at the agreed times, which was very different from what we've seen in the region previously.
Being quite remote, we heard Borneo was a great place to see wildlife in their original habitat. However, it was also an eye-opening experience to see how much damage is being inflicted on nature on an ongoing basis (for example, forest cover on the Malay side has shrunk from 70% to 50% in 20 years), to the extent where you have to ask the question if there will be anything in another 20 years for our children to see?! Szilveszter received a book for his birthday, written by Lief Cocks, the founder of the Orangutan Project conservation program which was the perfect pre-read for the trip. In the book the writer quoted a Native American proverb, which left a deep impression on us:
"When the last tree is cut down, the last fish eaten and the last stream poisoned,
only then will man realise that you cannot eat money."
Sipadan
Sipadan was our first destination, as one of the most famous diving spots in the world. It is a tiny, thickly forested island surrounded by sandy beaches an hour' boat ride from the city of Semporna on the ‘mainland’. The island was formed by living corals growing on top of an extinct undersea volcano, which rises 600m from the seabed. Due to its geographical position its marine habitat is extremely rich, more than 3000 species of fish and hundreds of coral species have been classified in its waters.
Arrival to Sipadan Island - surrounded by diving sites
Up until recently there were resorts directly on Sipadan, but due to their environmental impact, they were moved to neighbouring Mabul island or the mainland when Sipadan was named a protected marine reserve in 2004. As a consequence, only 120 diving permits are issued each day, and you have to make bookings well in advance if you want to be sure of getting a spot. Prices are correspondingly high, and only the 5 original operators have permits as ‘compensation’ for having to vacate the island. Other dive companies can only dive at other islands, or they can resell tickets to the Sipadan companies’ trips.
The city
Given we only had 2 days / 3 nights for this stop, we stayed in the city of Semporna on the main island. It has a compact waterfront area, a few supermarkets, lots of hostels and hotels of low to medium quality within a walkable distance and a wide variety of restaurants. Unfortunately it isn’t very picturesque being absolutely littered with rubbish on the streets, but it's rather an adequate place to stay in between dives. Rubbish is actually a recurring problem on both land and sea – a lot of houses are built on stilts on the water and we regularly saw women finish sweeping up their balcony and then empty the contents of their dustbin into the water below them completely naturally. Unfortunately the content of their bin wasn’t all natural, and the sea was completely carpeted with plastic bags and bottles, the propeller on our motorboat would regularly get stuck and have to get cleaned out. Pity the poor turtles and fish who end up eating the plastic or choke on it! A shocking statistic we heard since then was that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the ocean overall than fish! Another fun fact about Semporna is that it has a single ATM for 100,000 residents, so bring cash with you.
Semporna has a wide selection of local or Chinese restaurants for any budget levels. The first night we picked a Malay place which seemed to be very popular with the locals, and ended up having meals there 3 times! We tried most items on the menu from vegetable/meet roti and other freshly fried pancakes with aromatic Indian spices. Seafood is abundant on the street close to the water, mostly at popular Chinese restaurants.
Safety
After arriving we heard from worried Western tourists that their governments were issuing travel advisories for people to beware of the pirates operating in the area and kidnapping Western travelers. We’d known that there were longstanding issues with militants from the Southern part of the Philippines attempting to achieve independence as the Sultanate of Sulu, but we didn't hear about recent incidents. Anyways, once we were already there, we decided that there was little point in running away! We asked some of the locals and they told us not to worry as long as we stayed in populated areas with elevated police and navy as opposed to the outlying islands which are a higher risk at night - and anyways, the pirates are out to kidnap American tourists, which is much more rewarding financially, so we're safe! I’m sure pirates can differentiate between various Western tourists’ nationalities at a glance! Later on the trip we met other Western tourists who avoided this region overall which seems to be a little overreacted considering that we saw no sign of being unsafe and the place was absolutely fantastic!
Diving
On our 1st day of diving, we warmed up with 3 dives around Mabul island, before heading to Sipadan island for our 2nd day. We would recommend the company we booked with, Scubaholics, as they were a reliable and friendly team with good equipment. They even let us use the gear from our 1st day when they organised the 2nd day indirectly with a different company who is allowed to take people to the marine park. This was a relief as the 2nd company didn’t seem as reliable (in manners or gear). When we got on the boat the 2nd day, we were told that the national park office was closed the previous day for a national holiday, so they couldn’t register our correct names (well, we had to submit all our details 2 months before when we made the booking, but this clearly wasn't long enough notice..), so everyone received a slip of paper with their new name and passport number – Chinese divers received Chinese names, Western divers (i.e. us) received Western names. Our dive master stood next to us when we registered in the guidebook to make sure we didn’t mistakenly write our real name. A bit dodgy, but we’d seen worse in our travels… What nationality do you think we became? American, obviously! I imagined ourselves trying to explain to the pirates if we were kidnapped, that we weren’t really Americans, just pretending… Luckily nothing even remotely pirate-like happened, but the setup would have been perfect!
Mabul island diving - locals, sea snake and lion fish
Our actual 3 dives on Sipadan were incredible, it absolutely deserves its reputation. Over the course of our first 45-minute dive, we saw 30-40 turtles, more than we had seen in all our dives combined, and some of them were absolutely massive, maybe 2m across! However absurd it sounds, you felt silly pointing out the 20th turtle since they were everywhere!
On the second dive, we saw two “storms” of jackfish and barracuda respectively, where the fish are swimming around you in a circle packed so thick it feels like a wall – a completely surreal experience! Other than that, we also saw lots of reef sharks, a family of massive lobster, a variety of eels, a poisonous sea snake that made passes at us ("Don’t worry, it can’t open its mouth very big, so it can only bite you between your fingers or on your ear”), a cuttlefish (kind of like a squid) and many more beautiful marine life.
As an interesting fact, on both days our diving group was made up of Chinese people only, and this was a good representation of the mix of visitors in the city as well, which was surprising being an international diving paradise! As locals explained, diving has become very popular in China in the past few years as a prestigious sport, therefore an increasingly large group visits the place each year. Most of them are new to diving but are set up tip to toes with the best possible gear!
It was also interesting to see that within Borneo, tourists self-segmented themselves based on activity type. While around 80-90% of the tourists in Semporna / Sipadan were Chinese, the overwhelming majority of visitors in the jungle areas of Sepilok and Kinabatangan were Westerners. I guess it just goes to show that the types of tourism have fashions as well, but we found it difficult to imagine how someone could go to Borneo for one world-class type of activity, but not make the effort to travel a few hours and do the other fantastic program.
Wildlife-spotting on the Kinabatangan River
After seeing the treasures of Borneo under the water, we wanted to discover the second thing Borneo is famous for: jungle wildlife, for which we headed to the Kinabatangan River. It was a 5-hour bus ride from Semporna (with a surprisingly sharp and clean public bus service according to Asian standards!) through the countryside to the village of Sukau, which is one of the more accessible places to see the jungle.
Over the course of the entire ride the only thing we could see, however, was palm oil plantations as far as the eye could see...
Palm oil is a crop that has become very popular over the last 20 years and is used as an ingredient in a huge variety of foodstuff and cosmetics. A sad side-effect of this was that it sped up deforestation as the jungle was cut down to make space for huge monoculture plantations – the reality of which we were seeing with our own eyes. There are some untouched National Parks, but they represent only a small fraction of the island, so local communities and NGOs are constantly pushing to increase the amount of protected areas and the reforest areas which were cleared. Local communities are increasingly against deforestation, as they are recognising that the jungle provides a lot of ‘ecosystem services’ such as clean air, water, food, not to mention tourism revenue, which outweigh the financial benefits of the palm oil plantation, gained by wealthy, often foreign plantation owners instead of the local people. Unfortunately, locals often have very little say in the land use decisions, which are made by far-away and sometimes corrupt bureaucrats, so the true costs and benefits of the forests aren’t accurately accounted for. As a result of a multi-year campaign by environmental NGOs, food manufacturers have started to pay attention to sourcing their palm oil from sustainable sources, which would make a big difference.
The jungle on the 2 sides of the Kinabatangan River was an incredible place to see wildlife in their natural habitat, but even then there were places where, looking through the trees you could see the palm oil plantations in the background. No wonder there were so many animals by the river – they didn’t have anywhere else to go – although at least they had the river they could go to!
Palm oil plantations are closer than you think
Arriving at the ‘village centre’ of Sukau, we were surprised to see it consisted of a school, a mosque and a jetty on the river – it turns out all the houses are spread out along the river and are only accessible by boat. We stayed with Menangul Homestay B&B, which was a 2-minute boat ride away, and although the accommodation was Spartan (we showered from a bucket with what we were pretty sure was river water), it was an authentic experience with our lovely hosts and our sharp-sighted boatman made sure we got even more from the stay than what we were expecting. We would absolutely suggest to everyone to spend at least 1, but preferably 2 days on the river, instead of just taking a day trip, which includes only 1 boat ride and, therefore, much less chance of seeing animals in the wild. By sleeping on the spot, we were able to take 3 x 2-hour cruises per day, at the best times for seeing wildlife, at the crack of dawn and at dusk. Otherwise it’s too hot and humid so the animals - just like the people - lie in the shade all day and it’s very hard to spot them.
1-2. Our guesthouse and wildlife guide;
3. pygmy elephant bath; 4. monkey bridge against crocodiles
We were fortunate enough to see a range of wild animals:
an entire herd of pygmy elephants - Even the adults don’t grow to be much taller than 2-2.5m tall, and weigh a puny 2-5 tonnes, compared to African elephants between 3-4m tall and weighing up to 11 tonnes;
a pygmy elephant taking his evening bath for 20 minutes just 5 metres from our boat;
a solitary large male orangutan in a wild figtree;
dozens of famous long-nosed proboscis monkeys – these were the ones Renata was looking forward to the most, they are only present in Borneo. Male proboscis monkeys are instantly recognisable from their enormous red noses, which is the ultimate sign of an alpha male - the bigger and redder it is, the bigger harem he will be able to gather around himself;
more monkeys than we could shake a stick at, including long- and pig-tailed macaques. There were even some playing on the trees around our accommodation, although when Renata first saw them and excitedly yelled ‘Look, monkeys!” our guide quickly corrected us: “Not monkey, long-tailed macaque”
a huge variety of birds, including hornbills, egrets, owls, and eagle and plenty of other, colourful birds that we can’t remember the name of – it is a birdwatcher’s paradise too
a new type of small snake that even our guide hadn’t seen before, and some other that even he preferred not to go too close to
leeches – we’d never seen a leech in person before. They sense your heat / blood and are capable of some incredible acrobatics to get at you. Szilveszter even managed to collect one on his chest when he wasn’t paying attention on our jungle walk – other than the shock and the fact that it took a long time for the blood to coagulate and would to start to heal, it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.
Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary and Sun Bear Conservation Centre (BSBCC)
Our final stop of this brief trip was to the Orangutan Sanctuary and Rehabilitation Centre in Sepilok, one of the most recognised (and simple) places to see orangutans in the world.
Szilveszter dressed to assimilate to the sanctuary residents
The word orangutan actually means “person of the forest”, for a good reason: orangutans are extremely intelligent, about as smart as a 4-year old child and they can communicate with people if we teach them sign language. Baby orangutans spend 9 years living with their mothers and learning life skills, during which time the mother doesn’t have any more children so she can focus her efforts on this critical task. However, baby orangutans are popular pets, so poachers frequently kill the mother in order to be able to take the babies away. If the babies are lucky, the poachers get caught and they end up in the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, where over the course of many years staff and a few older orangutans try to teach them all the things they should have learned from their mothers, and eventually return them into the wild. Some of the orangutans will never be able to live wild again, either because of their physical condition (e.g. they have had their limbs amputated, lost their eyesight) or a psychological reason (e.g. they are never able to process the emotional trauma they have suffered and / or have become too aggressive to their environment to be set free).
In the sanctuary the orangutans are free to come and go as they like, so there is no guarantee of being able to see them, however a half-dozen or so usually show up around feeding time , giving the gathering crowds great photo opportunities for 30 minutes or so. Purposely, the keepers feed them the same plain food every day to encourage them to go find their own food in the forest if they get bored of the diet. It felt very strange being amongst the crowds of tourists after the solitude of the Kinabatangan River, many of whom had flown in to Borneo for one day only, just to spend an hour at the sanctuary. I was glad we were able to spend more time, and also that we had been to the ‘real’ jungle beforehand – even though we saw fewer animals, it was still spectacular and a lot more authentic.
We also paid a visit to the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, which is literally just across the street from the orangutans. We hadn’t even heard of sun bears before coming to Borneo, and neither had most people. Sun bears are the smallest bears in the world and are instantly recognisable by a white “V” shaped stripe of fur on their chests. They live in Southeast Asia and Borneo. Funnily enough, the Bornean species is half the size of the ‘normal’ sun bear (apparently all animals are mini on Borneo, from the elephants to the bears), not much larger than a dog and weighing up to 60kg. They will also do anything to get honey (even more than other bears) so we nominally bought a couple of jars of honey for them from the centre’s gift shop, which is just one type of donation you can make.
Unfortunately for the sun bears, they have 2 disadvantages:
They are incredibly cute - meaning people want to keep them as pets when they are cubs, but then chain or cage them when they grow older and start behaving like a proper bear,
Their bile, a digestive fluid produced by the liver, is considered very valuable in traditional Chinese medicine - it is estimated that 12,000 bears of various species are farmed as ‘battery bears’, hooked up to machines in cages to continuously extract their bile.
Bornean sun bears are actually even more endangered than orangutans with supposedly only around 2000 left in the wild, but somehow they are much less known worldwide and receive less attention from donors. A Malay biologist, Wong Siew Te, sought to remedy this situation by founding the sun bear centre (BSBCC) in 2008, which now houses 44 rescued ex-captive bears. Again, some of the bears they find are in very poor shape (e.g. have their nails cut off if they were held domestically while bears’ nails are actually a part of their bone, so they will never grow back) and even healthy ones can take 3-5 years before they can be released back in to the wild, so they are actually at full capacity and can’t really take in any more new residents.
A new and unusual arrival at the Sepilok sanctuary was a baby pygmy elephant, whose parents had been decapitated a few weeks ago by poachers to get their tusks for ivory – luckily a relatively rare crime judging by the outrage and surprise it generated locally with posters everywhere on the streets and buildings. The baby elephant was also looking for donations, since even a baby pygmy elephant drinks an enormous amount of powdered milk! Again, we couldn’t say no to a hungry baby pygmy elephant, so we helped them out too.
Proboscis monkey reserve
Another stop around Sepilok was going to see the Labuk Bay proboscis monkey reserve; in which one of the palm oil plantation owners decided to set aside a part of his land for the monkeys and organise regular feeding sessions for them, thereby capitalising on the wishes of tourists to snap some up-close pictures of these long-nosed primates. We had mixed feelings about this latter location – of course it is applaudable that the plantation owner decided to keep at least part of the land, but the whole attraction felt very touristy and rather profit-oriented. Additionally, the entrance ticket was twice as expensive as to the orangutan or sun-bear sanctuary, while the latter two actually do lots of conservation work instead of just feeding the animals. We agreed that the orangutan and sun bear sanctuaries were must-sees, but the probiscus monkey sanctuary was passable.
We also stumbled across a large public recreational park, but it was a surreal experience. There were fishing ponds, paddle boats, plenty of employees keeping the grounds in order and a small restaurant. There were even a herd of deer (advertised as ‘Australian’ when in fact deer aren’t indigenous to Australia given they aren’t marsupials, but never mind..) and a couple of crocodiles (albeit grossly overweight, in slimy waters and in terrible condition). The only thing missing was, first of all, any sign or other indication that this was a park, so we had to open the gate and let ourselves in; and secondly, there was absolutely not a single visitor other than ourselves despite it being around midday on a weekend! It felt almost like a ghost park! We did ask the employees and they said we were most welcome, but they couldn't explain the reason of not having any visitors around.
We would also recommend our accommodation in Sepilok, the Paganakan Dii, which is set on a beautiful hillside overlooking the jungle, only a 5-minute drive from the sanctuaries - with free shuttle provided. Even just having running water felt like a luxury coming from the homestay on the river! Here is the view from our terrace:
Call to Action
It took quite a bit of time to digest everything we saw in Sepilok, and it is only now that we're starting to fully realise that despite the pleasant ambiance for tourists and the souvenir shops, the environment in the sanctuaries was what the emergency room at a hospital must be like, with animals that have suffered massive physical and emotional trauma being brought in constantly.
We were very glad we went on the trip, since we saw so many unique animals, but we also saw firsthand the daily struggles conservation groups are facing to preserve them and the casualties that the animals are suffering at human hands – this is possibly one of the things we had to see to truly understand. For sure we left with a much greater appreciation for their work and a commitment to try to change our habits to further reduce our environmental footprint.
If our account of the plight of the turtles, orangutans, elephants and sunbears have moved you to take action just like our experiences did to us, there are a few simple steps you can take to play your part:
Use renewable energy - lots of energy providers give you the option to do this for paying a bit more
Buy products which contain sustainable palm oil - Szilveszter was relieved to learn Ferrero, the manufacturer of Nutella is an industry leader in sustainability!
Reduce the amount of plastic and packaging you use and recycle it
Support wildlife conservation charities - WWF, The Orangutan Project or the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, just to name a few of our favourites -, so they can protect more jungle and help rehabilitate animals which are recovered from poachers. Another of Szilveszter’s favourites is the Virunga National Park in the Congo which looks out for the also endangered mountain gorillas – which we also want to visit one day!
We would also recommend reading the book “Orangutans. My Cousins, My Friends” by Lief Cocks, the founder of the Orangutan Project conservation program. It is partly about the orangutans, partly about his journey to helping orangutans, and partly his philosophy for life. While we felt we didn’t exactly agree with everything he wrote, and sometimes it felt like you were reading a business report instead of a book, it certainly had some interesting thoughts worth considering. After finishing our copy, we decided to leave it in the jungle at the guest house with our hosting family, where there were more than 10 children who, hopefully, will form part of a more educated generation who will protect nature as its biggest treasure.