Kinabatangan River

Borneo Pygmy Elephants

The sad struggle with the land bordering the Kinabatangan River (and all of Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo) is that it's been extensively cleared and developed for oil palm plantations.

There are plantations of oil palms for miles and miles and miles along the roads.

Oil palm "forests" are the new normal across much of Southeast Asia. Mature oil palm trees like these may often be colonized by ferns and epiphytes on their trunks, but these monocultures are a pitiful substitute for real forests. With zero plant bi

The uses for the highly productive oil palm are endless. Palm oil from the fruits is the cheapest and most common vegetable oil on the global market, and is used in everything from household beauty products to just about every packaged food item on

Long-tailed Macaque

Black and Yellow Broadbill

Black and Yellow Broadbill birdbath

Oriental Pied Hornbill

Proboscis Monkey (female)

Proboscis Monkey (male)

Saltwater Crocodile

Borneo Pygmy Elephants

Bornean Pygmy Elephants

Blue-throated Bee Eaters

Grey-headed Fish Eagle

Great Egret

Storm's Stork

Bornean Orangutan (female)

Bornean Orangutan (juvenile)

Blue-eared Kingfisher (male)

Blue-eared Kingfisher (female)

Common Iora

Grey Leaf Monkey (Hose's Langur)

Water Monitor Lizard

Giant Forest Gecko

The sad struggle with the land bordering the Kinabatangan River (and all of Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo) is that it's been extensively cleared and developed for oil palm plantations.

There are plantations of oil palms for miles and miles and miles along the roads.

Oil palm "forests" are the new normal across much of Southeast Asia. Mature oil palm trees like these may often be colonized by ferns and epiphytes on their trunks, but these monocultures are a pitiful substitute for real forests. With zero plant biodiversity, these plantations are devoid of animal life.

The uses for the highly productive oil palm are endless. Palm oil from the fruits is the cheapest and most common vegetable oil on the global market, and is used in everything from household beauty products to just about every packaged food item on store shelves. When the plant is past its production life, the leaves are used for biofuel, stalks for cattle feed, and the trunks can be ground up for fertilizer for more oil palms. The dilemma of the oil palm is that it's been a tremendous boom for developing economies both state and local, but past unregulated expansion has cleared up to 75% of Borneo's forests. Luckily, many companies have now adopted smarter sustainability policies and practices that can better manage existing plantations without the need for further environmental degradation.

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