Borneo 11: Oil Palm

Look at the list of ingredients on pretty much any processed food product in your home. Usually, close to the beginning is palm oil. There is an enormous global demand for palm oil, leading to the replacement of tropical forests by a single crop, Oil Palm. Flying into any city in Southeast Asia you will see vast areas of Oil Palm. The view above was taken flying into Lahad Datu, but the view is identical coming into Kuala Lumpur.

Huge areas in Borneo have already been cleared for Oil Palm plantations and the greatest threat to maintaining unlogged tropical forest is their continuing expansion. New areas around the Danum Conservation Area are already slated for conversion to Oil Palm. The economics of Oil Palm are so lucrative that it is fast becoming the only product in Southeast Asia. In Borneo, even cocoa (chocolate) is disappearing to Oil Palm.

If the global demand for palm oil crashes, although this is hard to imagine, or a pest runs rampant through these monocultures, the economy of Southeast Asia would be devastated. Still, for those of us from the west, we have little moral high ground. The replacement of huge areas in Canadian forests by Lodgepole Pine is little different, except that in British Columbia we have already seen what happens when a pest (mountain pine beetle) hits a monoculture. While this has devastated the economy of interior logging communities in British Columbia, we at least are part of a much more diversified economy at the national level. This isn't true for Southeast Asia.

Photo Credits: Me

Borneo 10: Fruit in the Forest

When Alfred Russell Wallace wrote about the jungles of Borneo in The Malay Archipelago, a journal of his travels in the area in the 1850s, he specifically mused on the absence of flowers. He noted that one of the most common misconceptions, by those who have not visited the jungle, was the belief that jungles are a tangle of flowers. This belief probably arises from seeing cultivated tropical plants in greenhouses.

Flowering usually occurs in mass events once every several years (and it is possible Wallace never witnessed this), probably as an adaptation to overwhelm seed predators. The last in Borneo (lowland dipterocarp rainforest) was in 1996, that is, until this year. It is still a mystery as to what triggers the event. One hypothesis is that it is related to the formation of huge bees nests on the trunks of the dipterocarp trees.

As a consequence of this years mass flowering, the jungle is filled with an abundance of fruit. One negative consequence is that many animals do not need to travel much to find food. Negative, I suppose, in the context of someone hoping to see Orang-utans. I didn't.

The fruit stands of Borneo are filled. One of the best is Rambutan (as seen above (tree) and below, the actual fruit).

You can split open the outer case of Rambutan with your thumbs. Inside is a white soft pulp that is incredibly sweet. The seed in the center (brighter white mass in the center above) you spit out. Rambutan is a fantastic treat and is selling right now for 2 Ringets (0.65 $CAN) a kilo.

Another and more enigmatic fruit is Durian. This fruit was noted by the earliest Europeans exploring the area hundreds of years ago.

Durian is most noted for the awful stench given off by the fruit (hotels and taxis will absolutely bar you from bringing this fruit inside). It is truly nauseating, especially in the heat. Inside the case, you also find a white pulp that many consider delicious, despite the odour. Having said that, not everyone is a fan. We tried fresh Durian at the field station and about half of the myrmecologists (ant biologists) loved it, and the other half hated it. I fell into the latter category. To me, it tastes like it smells.

It was clearly a favorite in the forest with the various primates. Below you can see opened Durian in the forest floor. Probably opened by Red Leaf Monkeys or Orang-utans.

Photo Credits: Me

Borneo 9: A work day at Danum

The work day always begins at 8 am, whether it is a lab day or a field day. When working in the field we usually headed out to the same area and then all scatter off the trails and into the jungle proper. Typically we could collect until noon then head back to the Field Centre for lunch. Within 30 minutes of work most of us are completely soaked through with sweat.

It took awhile to get the right search image for ants in a tropical rainforest. While some are huge (e.g., Camponotus gigas (see below)), most are tiny, and are especially common in the leaf litter. Using litter extractors (mini-Winklers) yields an endless variety of ants. Interestingly, many of these ants are trap-jaw ants. For a picture of one common trapjaw ant (genus Strumigenys) in the leaf litter, click here. Still, ants could be found on the vines, leaves, tree trunks, and in woody debris. In the latter case you had to watch for scorpions when pulling apart the wood. No one was an expert on scorpions, but one of the first we encountered was recognized by a student from India as definitely something you did not want to touch.

The largest ant, possibly the largest in the world if you settle on one definition of 'large' was Camponotus gigas.

Shown above is a minor of Camponotus gigas which differs from the majors in two ways. First, the ant above is much smaller than a major, second, the minors are docile and not inclined to bite. The majors are aggressive and live to charge and bite. If your first encounter with this species is a minor, you have a surprise coming when you meet your first major. One student had a major clamped onto the skin between his thumb and forefinger which easily sliced through the skin.

After a morning of collecting it was back to the lab for the afternoon. We would begin to sort, pin and identify what we had collected. A morning in the field was easily 1-2 days of work in the lab.

Five 0'clock marked Happy Hour, which was mandatory for everyone. If you have been told you can't buy booze in Malaysia, you have been misinformed. This was followed by a lecture at 6 pm (always a fantastic presentation by some of the best biologists in the world). Supper was at 7 and then it was back to the lab for the rest of the night. I usually packed it in around 9:30- 10 pm but some students worked till the power was cut off at midnight.

Photo Credits: Me, except for the photo of me, taken by Phil Barden (American Museum of Natural History)

Borneo 8: Danum Field Centre

Every morning at the Danum Field Centre looks like this. A heavy humid mist hangs over the forest. The morning temperature may only be in the low twenties but a 10 minute walk to the lab or kitchen will quickly leave you with a soaking sweat if you even slightly exceed a slow walk. Watching people walk here is a little like watching someone summit Mt. Everest, there is that slow plodding pace that no one exceeds.

One fact that many people may find interesting is the near complete absence of mosquitoes. In the 10 days that I spent at the field centre, I saw 3, really! Even when you are off trail in the jungle, sweating buckets in the mid-day heat and humidity, you will not be bothered by mosquitoes. This is great because there is the risk of malaria in the area (or dengue, or Japanese encephalitis, or....). Unfortunately, the lack of mosquitoes is balanced by the abundance of leeches.

There are two types of leeches here. The large ones, as seen above that quickly get under you clothes (5 minutes into the forest and you are pulling one of these out of someones armpit), and some tiny ones that can push through the eyelets for your boot laces, and latch onto your feet. For these, you wear leech socks, something generally not available at Mountain Equipment Coop. Fortunately, leeches do not vector any diseases so they are really just an annoyance. Having said that, they get absolutely everywhere. One day at lunch I watched a leech fall out of one woman's sleeve while she was scooping rice onto her plate.

Borneo 7: Danum

When our van blew out a tire on the way into Danum, one of the first things I noticed, after the amazing rainforest scenery was the abundance of Mimosa plants along the roadside. I've seen Mimosa plants before, but to see them growing in the wild is quite different. When touched, the plant quickly droops the leaflets and the stem to pull the plant away from whatever is bothering it.

The Mimosa plant is just the beginning though. Here are a couple of photos taken this past week.

A Scarabid Beetle
Lantern Bugs (Probably genus Pyrops)

A Curved Spiny Backed Spider (probably Gasteracatha arcuata). Yes, it could be sharper but taking pictures in the jungle is a real challenge. There is very little light. When hunting ants in the leaf litter or in a rotten log, you need a headlamp, even at noon.

Photo Credits: Me

Borneo 6: Travel to Danum

I've been offline for awhile in the Danum Conservation Area. Reports of broadband access at Danum are somewhat overstated. Most days you can get slow access to e-mail (for awhile) but actually blogging is somewhat more difficult and, if even possible, would tie up computer access for others. Here I'll try to provide a bit of a catch-up on the last two weeks.

We left Kota Kinabalu on August 16th, flying across Borneo into Lahad Datu, a flight mercifully short, at a bit less than an hour (I say this in the context of a 13 hr flight to Hong Kong). Lahad Datu is the launching point for anyone going into the Danum Conservation Area. The Lonely Planet Guide has pretty much only one thing to say about Lahad Datu, and that is, don't linger.

I'm not sure if this is fair, but we spent very little time here. There has been some trouble with the Abu Sayyaf Islamic separatist group on some of the islands just offshore from Lahad (foreigners kidnapped with a much less than satisfactory outcome), and last year they robbed the bank in Lahad itself (I'm told the walls are still pock marked with bullet holes but we did not pass by the bank ourselves). I did speak with a young French tourist later who had spent a couple of days in Lahad. His thoughts certainly wouldn't help the Lonely Planet to change there thoughts here. Still, if you knew someone who really knew their way around the town, you'd probably find a lot to appreciate.

Lahad Datu, however, really is the jumping off point for one of the last great areas on our planet. A 2.5 hr bone jarring van ride will take you from Lahad Datu to the Danum Conservation Area. About an hour out of Danum we blew a tire on our van (no surprise), and when we got out of the van, I was able to get my first photo of genuine lowland tropical rainforest (jungle). A spectacular experience.

Photo Credits: Me

Borneo 5: Kota Kinabalu

I arrived in Borneo about noon yesterday. The hub for access to Malaysian Borneo is Kota Kinabalu (KK), situated on the north coast. Last night I finally got a chance to meet many of the other specialists in ant biology and ecology around town and in the hotel. I'm not sure how many countries are represented in total but they are from everywhere (US, China, Kirghistan, Finland, Australia, France, Iran etc.). In a couple of hours we will all fly out for Lahad Datu and then drive in trucks into the Danum Conservation Area.

If I had written this post earlier yesterday I would have been pretty negative about KK. It is much more rural and economically disadvantaged as compared to Kuala Lumpur. Granted, the city was bombed out of existence twice during the second world war, but still, most buildings are in poor condition. It is extremely humid and hot here(I pulled out my camera a few minutes ago and the lens immediately fogged over, I wiped it off and it fogged over again before I could take a picture) and a walk past the markets, which are everywhere, brings the smell of fish and meat that are sitting out in the sun. Occasionally you also get the extremely nauseating smell of Durian, a fruit found in Borneo that is reported to have an incredibly great taste (I tried some in Kuala Lumpur but it wasn't fresh and the taste pretty much went with the smell). You are not allowed to take it into taxis or into hotels.

Last night I had a better look at KK (despite a driving tropical rain), travelling through the city with some biologists that were familiar with what the city had to offer. At a restaurant we ate in last night, we were able to watch the cooks making noodles. From a square block of dough, they can make perhaps 50 or so meter long noodles with about 6 flicks of their hands. Quite a skill. Granted, I have no idea what half of the things I've been eating actually are, but so far it has been great. You simply don't eat anything not cooked or that you cannot peel.

The photo above is looking north into the South China Sea. There are some islands just offshore that are obvious in the picture, but what you probably cannot see is that along the shore is a massive floating city of boats. In the photo below you see a typical market.