INDIGO LONGHOUSE INDIGENOUS INITIATIVE

Firstly, we would like to dedicate the INDIGO LONGHOUSE INDIGENOUS INITIATIVE (ILII) to the Dyak peoples of Indonesian Kalimantan, Sarawak, Brunei and Sabah, with some of the world’s most diverse flora and fauna. The division into these countries is the result of the European colonial remnant divisions of Borneo, the third largest island on the planet, after Greenland and New Guinea.

The noble Dyak people of the island have always offered me the most peaceful and kind hospitality despite my wandering through their rain forests for months at a time from one longhouse village to the next. I hope that they will be treated well in the “development” and deforestation of their ancient tropical forests by the two governments of Malaysia and Indonesia. Why is it that peoples living in harmonious cooperation with their natural environment are being disrespected and pushed aside by more “civilized” groups who feel that they can much better utilize this nature.

The rainforest is the home of the Dyak people, from birth to death. It is the source of everything they need to survive and thrive; and it holds profound social and spiritual significance, revered as the source of life. Children are born beside rivers; and their family plants a tree in gratitude and bury the umbilical cord beneath it. After a life dependent on the rainforest for food and shelter, their bodies are placed in a sacred area of the rainforest that is reserved for spirits. And after periods of time, for example 1000 days, the relatives and friends will re-unite with the departed in ceremony and feasting. It is a special existence from which we have departed ways.

I have walked for an entire day through endless forest that was the natural and ancient home to hundreds of orchid species. Are we merely to turn this magical, often luminous landscape into timber, into palm oil plantations, into opencast mining clearings for electric battery minerals? Destroy the environment to save the environment? It makes no sense. We are indeed a Godless civilization.

Another vital tropical rainforest and its people in the path of civilization’s rampant progress. “We know the value of our plants, how they cure us, how they feed us, and we know paths within the forest that have led us to meet different animals,” I was told many times in defense of indigenous conservation.

Perhaps our best hope for the future of the environment of our planet lies in the inherited knowledge and wisdom of the longstanding stewards of the lands over many millennia during which time the natural landscapes were enhanced and respected rather than dangerously degraded.

That’s all for now folks! Just for now! Will keep you posted soon.