A Visual Celebration of Borneo's Wildlife
by Fanny Lai & Bjorn Olesen
Edited by Yong Ding Li
450 pages, $70 hardback
Published by Bjorn Olesen Wildlife Photography, Singapore
Fanny Lai and Bjorn Olesen started with Borneo the way many people do: the trek up to the summit of Mount Kinabalu. As Bjorn explained to me via email the other week:
After the climb we spent a few days at the Kinabatangan River in Sabah watching the incredible wildlife diversity there. This was our first encounter with the Bornean Orangutan and the Bornean Pygmy Elephant; thus began our addiction to Borneo.
That was in 1998 and it was enough to put the hook in them; they’ve been returning regularly ever since. A Visual Celebration of Borneo’s Wildlife is a photographic tribute to this captivating island and its unusual fauna. But it offers much more than a coffee-table experience of flicking through images. The photographs are accompanied by blocks of text providing more than mere captions; more than a visual celebration, there is genuine scholarship here too. There are chapters dedicated to the various habitats found around the island and specific destinations within them. Introductory pages pay tribute to the great naturalists of the region: Alfred Russel Wallace, John Whitehead, and Charles Hose. The depictions don’t focus only on the spectacular and celebrated animals of Borneo, but also direct attention toward the lesser-known. There are chapters covering marine fauna, invertebrates, amphibians, and the botanical wonders of Borneo as well.
Bornean Crested Flameback. Bjorn Olesen. Used with kind permission.
The book has a heavy focus on conservation. Royalties from the sale of the book are being donated to Fauna & Flora International (FFI): an international organisation which has fostered an innovative approach to conservation since the early 1960s. Fanny and Bjorn’s connection with FFI goes back several years:
We have worked with Fauna & Flora International in Southeast Asia on a pro bono basis since 2013, and we are impressed with their conservation work in the field. FFI was founded in 1903 and is the world’s longest established international conservation body, working now in more than 40 countries around the globe, mostly in the developing world.
An important partner to conservation initiatives is ecotourism and it can be argued that the income provided by ecotourism is particularly important in developing nations. This happy marriage of conservation science and ecotourism is something I’ve seen at work in numerous countries and it seems that Borneo is no different. Bjorn goes further, suggesting that conservation in many areas of the island would be lost without it:
For conservation projects in Borneo to be successful, it is now recognised that the involvement and participation of local people and communities is integral. It is imperative to find ways to generate some form of economic benefit from the ecosystem and doing so in a sustainable manner. In other words, conservation needs to be linked to improving the standard of living of the local people, so that they have a personal incentive in sustaining those conservation actions. It is here that ecotourism has an indispensable role to play for the continued existence and well-being of the natural areas and their wildlife in Borneo.
In Sabah, Borneo eco-tourism has been particularly successful and is employing a substantial number of local people and attracting international investments. However, it is a long battle as for instance the palm-oil companies in Borneo also have a significant influence.
In Borneo, ecotourism has tremendous potential with the natural attractions and rich cultural traditions of the resident communities. Ecotourism can offer alternative ways to generate sustainable employment opportunities and income for the local communities, and provide unique tourism experiences, while creating incentives to protect habitat. While many challenges lie ahead, the experience from other parts of Southeast Asia shows that it may be the best way forward.
True to its conservation focus, A Visual Celebration of Borneo’s Wildlife doesn’t shy from facing the numerous impediments to conservation. One in particular might be difficult for Australian readers to fully grasp. The illegal trade in wildlife is naturally clandestine in nature but it is underestimated here in Australia. In South East Asia it is more blatant and what regulations there are tend to be poorly enforced. The nature of the market increasingly targets animals the rarer they become. It’s a savage feedback loop that currently has numerous species on a trajectory toward extinction. Bjorn elaborates:
In Borneo, trade in animal products and parts have been going on for centuries with China. Highly priced products like horns from the Sumatran Rhino and edible birds’ nests are in exceptionally high demand. Illegal trade in pangolin parts has decimated the population, and the Sunda Pangolin is now classified as Endangered.
The latest example is the ‘ivory’ casque of the Helmeted Hornbill, which is directly carved on or cut into ornaments. Based on reports of confiscations and Asian trading websites between 2012 and 2013, it has emerged that up to 500 Helmeted Hornbills were killed every month in the province of West Kalimantan, Indonesia alone. The heads of the Helmeted Hornbills were subsequently smuggled out via Sumatra and Java to Hong Kong, China and Taiwan. For this reason the Helmeted Hornbill was classified as Critically Endangered in 2016.
To make a long story short, illegal trading in wildlife is still a big problem in Borneo and the rest of Asia.
There are some species in the book which will be a genuine treat for birders. The pittas, of course, are true “birders’ birds”; they’re both difficult to see and wonderfully coloured. The grip-off factor is dialled up to eleven here as all Bornean species are depicted and stunningly captured by Olesen. When you appreciate how hard it is merely to glimpse these birds, it is flabbergasting to see them photographed so beautifully. Another stand-out in this regard is the Bornean Ground-cuckoo. This species permitted only the most fleeting of glimpses when I visited the Kinabatangan wetlands in 2015 and I was grateful for that. Again though, Olesen has triumphed with some marvellous shots of the species.
....and it's not all about the birds. Bornean Keeled Pit Viper. Bjorn Olesen. Used with kind permission.
For these birds alone, A Visual Celebration of Borneo’s Wildlife will be worth the asking price for most birders and there is much more besides to recommend it. Australian birders will find a thoroughly informative text providing an excellent foundation for birding trips in the region as well as information on all the other fauna and flora to be found on the island.
Fanny and Bjorn are already working on their next large-format publishing project which I am told has a working title of Asia’s Wildlife: A Journey to the Forests of Hope. The authors tell me it visits eight different ‘forests of hope’ in eight different Asian nations and is due for publication in mid-2018.
If the quality of A Visual Celebration of Borneo’s Wildlife is anything to go by the new book should be a lavish treatment of an even wider sample of Asia’s wildlife. I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for it.
CBW
Buy it at Andrew Isles
Click here to become a patron