Furs of Diard’s Clouded Leopard (Neofelis diardi). One of the villager caught and killed this poor creatures about 3 months ago when he found it’s stealing his hunted Sambar deer. You can see the furs still glow means it just skinned recently.
I was visiting Wahau for the first time about 3 weeks ago. It is located about 7 hours from Berau and full of oil palm development dynamics. One of my work characteristic nowadays! It is most likely visiting to disturbed – secondary forest, cleared land for oil palm plantation or any other use. I know this sort of boring but the reality that most good forest is altered into either agriculture, mining activities and even houses. Kalimantan most likely full with range of mountain although there is no volcano within the island. With such terrain and human activities widespread across the island, there is not enough room for human and spesifically wildlife like orangutans or gibbons. That is why there are so many conflicts between human and wildlife nowadays in Sumatra and Kalimantan. Apart with the destruction, there are always good and interesting things to see and talk about. I like the villagers and it is always great to work and talk with them especially about animals. Seemed they are not really worry about animals in the forest. They keep saying they still can find and hunt these animals in such great amount specially pigs, dear and mouse deer. Even some of their main occupation are hunters NOT farmers like most people nowadays in Kalimantan.
Logging dump just next to Wahau River. You’ll be surprised how far human take all this logs down to this river. It might be about 40 km from the river.Carved on Sambar Deer’s horn. It is usually use for the head of Mandau – the local parang or machete. Dayak Kayan women most do all the woven and carve like this one.Common view in Kalimantan. Cleared land with small hut for hunters and farmers looking after their land. Sometimes mixed with locals oil palm plantation and Ladang (farmland)Dayak Kayan Cemetery in East Kalimantan. Most of them are Christian and you can see culture and religion are mixed on their tomb. Next to this cemetery actually is the Moeslem cemetery.Dayak Kayan traditional free range pigs farmland. It is amazing that Dayak people already practiced free range farming. If you see behind the pigs, there are Dayaks’ boat race for boat festival during Summer.
Felicia Lasmana is a conservation biologist, blogger in Bahasa Indonesia – English, passionate traveller, avid reader, sensible vegetarian and a tea addict. She has a great interest in the application of conservation science into practical solutions such as sustainability-related issues.
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Felicia Lasmana 