Kalimantan Island

Borneo, of which Indonesian Kalimantan covers two-thirds, is a single, vast-ecosystem in which the thick, exuberant forest that covers the world's third largest island acts as an enormous sponge.

Formed over millions of years, the rainforest of Kalimantan is almost completely self-sustaining, requiring little more than water from the skies to survive. The soil on which the forest grows is thin and poor, and rather than drawing nutrients from the ground, it feeds on its own debris, recycling the nutrients contained in the rotting compost on the floor. Trees soar upwards, reaching a height of seventy meters or more, providing support for vines, creepers and orchids, and creating a dense canopy of leaves that protects the layer of humus from being washed away by the fierce tropical storms. While the thick cover of the forest blocks direct sunlight, rotting leaves and root mass store water from the rains, releasing it gradually during the dry season. Thus, the forest also creates and maintains the dark, warm, dank environment essential for its own continuous growth and that of the life within it.

In sheer terms of number and range of types of plants and animal, this forest is richer than any place on earth. More than five million species live here, more than half of the world's total, all on a single island. These include virulently poisonous mushrooms that glow in the dark, proboscis monkeys, named for their droopy, fleshy noses, orchid s in colors bright and subtle, carnivorous pitcher plants that lure insects by mimicking the pungent odor of rotting meat, the mighty orangutan, which build nests of leaves and branches where they sleep, often more than thirty meters above the ground, and more than six hundred different types of bird, including the hornbill and the pheasant.

Kalimantan is a single, vast ecosystem in which the thick, exuberant forest that covers the world's third largest island acts as an enormous sponge.

The Punan, the original people of Kalimantan, and the Dayak, a later wave of migrants who arrived several thousand years ago, have lived in harmony with their natural environment for thousands of years, harvesting the produce of the forest without causing significant damage.

Some Dayak still live in communal longhouses on river banks and survive through the practice of a form of slash-and-burn farming ideally suited to the lightly populated hinterland. There are many different tribes, each with its own culture and language: some, like the Keyah and the Kayan, stretch their ear lobes with heavy brass rings and cover their bodies with tattoos of vines, snakes and abstract, swirling patterns. Amongst others, old women, shamans and healers, conduct exorcisms in deep trance.