Fresh Fruit

These guys have just returned from their tembawang (see Tembawang) with a load of durian fruits (see Where'd all those durian trees come from?).  I'm a big fan of durian, and these are about as fresh and good as they get.

Field Assistant

This nice fellow, a Dayak from the Sanggau district of West Kalimantan, helped me with some forest inventories in the early 1990's.  He was great in the field. He knew his trees, picked up the inventory methodology very fast, and always had a big smile on his face.  He worked with us for about 10 days.  Never said a word. [NOTE: The tree in the background with the hacked-up trunk is Dipterocarpus (see Damar)].

No Hardhat, No Goggles, No Gloves, No Shoes

Village tree felling with a large Stihl chainsaw in the Kapuas Hulu district of West Kalimantan (see Danau Sentarum). Even bigger problems for local loggers? No gasoline. No kreteks. [NOTE: Stihl recommends this protective gear when operating their chain saws. Follow the links to the luminous yellow hard hats with built-in googles and face protector].

Roads

I usually have mixed feelings about building roads in tropical forests.  On one hand, they can allow local forest dwellers to get their products to market and provide a much-needed source of income.  On the other hand, they can allow a lot of new folks from outside to move into the area with decidedly negative effects on the local plants and animals.  Largely in response to the rich palette of soil colors, my first impression of this road in the Sanggau Regency of West Kalimantan was entirely positive.

Managed Landscapes

There's a lot going on in this image. At first glance, it's just a shot of a Dayak rice field in West Kalimantan.  But then there's the home garden with the bananas and fruit trees in the center of the shot, and the hill dipterocarp forests in the background that are loaded with tembawang (I know because I hiked up there). Every plant community is being managed in some way.  Agriculture, horticulture, forest management.  Truly a diverse portfolio. [NOTE: This is an old slide and it didn't scan so well.  Sorry].

Landscape Fishing

Fishermen in West Kalimantan, Indonesia build enormous fish traps out in the shallows of the South China Sea.  Using slender poles stuck into the mud, they construct large v-shaped traps that funnel all the fish that swim by into a net (located under the house shown in the picture). A kerosene lamp is usually suspended above the net to attract insects and lure the fish. The traps, which may extend out for several hundred meters, are visible from space. On satellite photos they look like landscape sculptures designed by Christo and Jeanne-Claude.

Global Positioning System

Here's one from the archive.  I am standing in front of a Dayak longhouse in the Kapuas Hulu regency of West Kalimantan in the early 1990's trying to spatially locate myself with a clunky GPS receiver. These were the days of "Selective Availability (SA)", and even though I might get a reading, it could be off by as much as 100 m.  I'm glad they eventually did away with this foolishness. [NOTE:  The GPS receivers in those days were big and heavy - and white, apparently. Don't know for sure, but it looks like I'm wearing a Batman t-shirt].

Ladang

A Dayak farmer in West Kalimantan closely watching the fire clear his upland rice field or ladang. The nutrient-rich ash from the burn will allow him to produce a good crop of rice for two or three years.  Weeds and low-yields will later force him to abandon rice cultivation and start managing a variety of useful tree species in the forest re-growth.     

Field Crews

In the early 1990's, I was involved with some extensive forest inventories in the northern part of Sanggau in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.  The sample area was kind of remote and hard to get to, and once you arrived, it was best to just camp out and finish the work.  Which is what three crews of local Dayaks, two cooks,  and I did for eight days. It only rained once. [NOTE: I remember one exceptional day we ran two kilometers of line through mixed Dipterocarp forest on terrain as flat as a football field.  The area, apparently, had never been logged and we didn't record a single stump.]  

Jungle Gym

This is pretty self-explanatory. A group of Dayak kids from the village of Tae in West Kalimantan climbing up the trunk of an illipe nut tree (see Illipe Nut, Illipe Nut II, and Illipe Nut III) in one of the local tembawangs (see Tembawang). [NOTE: The young man on the left in the brown shirt is Susanto, who worked in the camat's office in Batang Tarang and helped a lot with the research in Tae (thx Susanto)]