A Changing Landscape and the Penan

Source: The Nature of Things: The Fruit Hunters-Defender of Diversity

                                          August 29, 2013

Many times we have a fruit that is out of season or we consume plant material that comes from the southern hemisphere. These plants have to be grown in mass quantities in many places where these plants are not native to the area or if they are native they are still grown at such a scale that they replace the existing habitat. Often there are great costs to the environment; especially where these plants are grown in areas where rain forests once were

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There is so much diverse plant and animal life being lost do to large scale farms clearing the land. Too often plant and animal life that is labeled threatened or endangered continues to disappear with little response from mankind. We appear to just stand by waiting for species to get to the point of no return.

In Borneo one of the few of the world's nomadic tribes the Penan are on the endangered list. They have lived for thousands of years in a rain forest; which can be best described as a fruit paradise. The fruit is amongst the oldest and most biological diverse on the planet. There are more species of fruit than anywhere.

In the lush jungle of Borneo, Bala Tingang an elder of one of the last hunter and gatherer tribe lives on wild fruit that are key to the tribe's survival. And yet, all around the world natural diversity is being replaced with monocultures, plantations of only one variety.

The Penan who live in one with the fruit have been eating the fruit for generations. Once the food disappears, how will they live? Once the fruit disappears then the wild boar will disappear.

The Penan are under threat half the rainforest has been logged in the last 50 years and the pace has picked up dramatically. The incredible diversity is being bull dozed for a single crop, the palm tree. The fruit of the palm tree is being used for fuel, cooking and cosmetics. The nomadic Penan are forced to settle in villages. Their habitat is being destroyed and their feeling like,”The world can't wait to do away with the Penan.”