India and China, once again, start this story. Most history books start of tales of South East Asia as lying between these two lands. And the (Borneo) South East Asian style of interacting with foreign cultures developing from its strategic maritime position connecting East with West. Not conquered by these groups, as it was ruled over by a powerful Bruneian Sultanate.
SEA was known to Europeans pre-1600, as a land of immense wealth. SEA was known as the ‘Land of Gold’ by Indian and Western Hemisphere civilizations in the early centuries. A reference to the port of Suvarṇabhūmi, somewhere in the SEA region, where ships apparently traveled from as far as Basrah, in modern day Iraq.
Islam Influenced along the rivers, as the 13th century Arab traders arrived by river.
The region was known for its pepper, and the products of the rainforest such as aromatic woods and resins, then the finest and rarest of spices.
From 7th to 10th centuries, Chinese peoples thought of SEA as the vital passageway to India, and it was linked to Europe, the Middle East, as a source of exotic rainforest products with high market value.
SEA first civilisation to domesticate rice and develop wet rice cultivation.
1521 – Magellan – first contact of Westerners with Borneans
1764 – Handover of North Borneo (now Sabah) from the Sultanate of Brunei to the British East India Company.
Christian predominantly inland and further upstream, due to Islam on riverside town, missionaries traveled further inland,
British North Borneo Chartered Company (BNBCC) (launched 1881), capital at Sandakan declared in 1882.
Railway led to the opening of the interior and made access to Rubber cheaper.
Agnes Keith. Japanese occupied whole of Borneo through Second World War. Her books vividly capture life in the days before, during, and after occupation.
Raja of Sandakan – Overbeek,
After WWII, British Chartered Company was unable to afford reparations, so the land was ceded to the British Crown, making Sabah a colony. Jesselton became the new capital in 1949. In 1967, Sabah joined the Federation of Malaysia, and its capital became Kota Kinabalu (formerly Jesselton, named after the first director of the British Chartered Company).
During rebuilding activities, rubber plantations grew along the railways, boosting the recovering economy in the early 1950’s.
Fireflies – locally called Api-Api
Sarawak became a Crown Colony at the same time as Sabah, when the Raja Brook family decided not to return (June 1946)
Brunei
Indonesia
Note, these are draft ideas, somewhat copied and pasted from Kenneth Hall’s ‘History of South East Asia’. I intend to weave my own story to this piece, based on this information and other experiences had.
References
- Hall, Kenneth R., A History of Early Southeast Asia, Maritime Trade and Societal Development, 100-1500, 2011
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- Wikipedia
- https://www.borneo360.com/history/
3500km squared (877,000 acres) of forest (dipterocarp) is lost annually in Borneo. Borneo is 750,000 km squared, so at this rate, in 200 years the entire island would be a palm oil plantation. A somewhat arbitrary relation, however as palm oil is used efficiently in so many products, and other land uses are required to sustain a country. (Introduce Ecosystem Services). And as it is a higher yielding product than other alternatives, maybe it is the best we have to satisfy its market. The focus comes less in stopping the use of the product, but more in ensuring it is produced in balance with the ecosystem where it is being grown.
The challenge comes in limiting new forest destruction for agriculture, utilising existing felled spaces, but recovering key areas of land to ensure ecosystems are allowed some form of natural function. Reforestation of river banks prevents uncontrollable silting of rivers by reducing erosion and run-off, and enables animals to move between existing habitat.
Ecosystem Hotspots 