to go off-roading barefoot through jungle – but he recovered
himself after a minute or so and followed me.
The elephant was gone but I found something much more surprising. The beautiful rainforest, the wild jungle that I loved, which was home to so many thousands of animals, from the tiniest tree
frog to herds of wild elephants, was a façade. Literally a front, hiding a palm oil plantation. The jungle extended only about a hundred metres back from the river’s edge; after that
it was neat, cultivated row upon row of palms, all exactly the same height, extending as far as I could see. When the farming corporations had cut down the primeval forest they had left a thin
strip in place so that it looked like business as usual from the river. I suppose that in doing that they had at least preserved something of a habitat, albeit a small one, for the animals. (And,
the cynics might add, for the tourists.)
Steve was totally opposed to the logging and palm oil industries. Every chance he got he would take a pop at them. My opinion is that poorer people don’t always have the choices we do in
life. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to save some money and go off to see the world for a year or buy a boat for £100,000 (half a million Malaysian ringgit) and live without
working for the foreseeable future. Europe built its wealth and civilisation on agriculture and development and using what resources it had, and that is what Malaysia is doing now, except instead
of timber and coal it is palm oil. Maybe there is a happy middle ground between development and conservation but I don’t know much about it and I don’t want to judge people when
I’m ignorant of the facts myself. That was the argument I put forward if it came up in conversation between us. But standing there, rooted to the spot by the shock of seeing what had been
done to the rainforest, I felt unbelievable sadness. I only hoped that the cultivation wasn’t mirrored on the other side of the river. The hills we could see opposite as we had motored along
the Kinabatangan seemed to still be covered with original trees – palm-oil plantations form a very distinctive pattern, like pompoms, from a distance – so maybe it wasn’t as bad
as it seemed.
That was probably optimism talking. Every day we had to check the anchor chain to make sure there was nothing lodged up against it that could drag the anchor and set
Kingdom
adrift. One
evening there was a log 20 feet long caught on the chain. It was so heavy that Steve had to use the dinghy under engine to tow it off the chain and let it flow down river. And that happened more
than once.
These are big bits of valuable hardwood
, I thought.
Surely the loggers wouldn’t just toss them away?
But if the trees were being cut down not for timber but to
clear the area for planting, that would explain the jetsam. Probably it was a combination of both.
You wait ages for an elephant and then an entire herd comes along at once. Like with the monkeys, as soon as we’d seen one, we saw them all. Steve and I were across the river from
Kingdom
, in the dinghy, when I saw ripples in the water a short distance away. The ripples got bigger and bigger and something dark broke the water’s surface.
‘Steve,’ I whispered, pointing. ‘I think there’s a crocodile.’ As we watched, a black head emerged – and then a trunk. It looked like the same young male
elephant and he had been sitting completely submerged in the river. Maybe they really were hiding from us? Whether or not it was the same animal, and he had finally got that swim, he was alone. I
had read that young males were often cast out from the herds by the dominant male once they became seen as a threat. He lifted himself out of the water and on to the bank, climbing easily up the
slippery step, his hide slick with mud. And he ambled off again.
After that a whole herd came right to the water’s edge, exactly opposite
Kingdom
and
Southern
himself after a minute or so and followed me.
The elephant was gone but I found something much more surprising. The beautiful rainforest, the wild jungle that I loved, which was home to so many thousands of animals, from the tiniest tree
frog to herds of wild elephants, was a façade. Literally a front, hiding a palm oil plantation. The jungle extended only about a hundred metres back from the river’s edge; after that
it was neat, cultivated row upon row of palms, all exactly the same height, extending as far as I could see. When the farming corporations had cut down the primeval forest they had left a thin
strip in place so that it looked like business as usual from the river. I suppose that in doing that they had at least preserved something of a habitat, albeit a small one, for the animals. (And,
the cynics might add, for the tourists.)
Steve was totally opposed to the logging and palm oil industries. Every chance he got he would take a pop at them. My opinion is that poorer people don’t always have the choices we do in
life. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to save some money and go off to see the world for a year or buy a boat for £100,000 (half a million Malaysian ringgit) and live without
working for the foreseeable future. Europe built its wealth and civilisation on agriculture and development and using what resources it had, and that is what Malaysia is doing now, except instead
of timber and coal it is palm oil. Maybe there is a happy middle ground between development and conservation but I don’t know much about it and I don’t want to judge people when
I’m ignorant of the facts myself. That was the argument I put forward if it came up in conversation between us. But standing there, rooted to the spot by the shock of seeing what had been
done to the rainforest, I felt unbelievable sadness. I only hoped that the cultivation wasn’t mirrored on the other side of the river. The hills we could see opposite as we had motored along
the Kinabatangan seemed to still be covered with original trees – palm-oil plantations form a very distinctive pattern, like pompoms, from a distance – so maybe it wasn’t as bad
as it seemed.
That was probably optimism talking. Every day we had to check the anchor chain to make sure there was nothing lodged up against it that could drag the anchor and set
Kingdom
adrift. One
evening there was a log 20 feet long caught on the chain. It was so heavy that Steve had to use the dinghy under engine to tow it off the chain and let it flow down river. And that happened more
than once.
These are big bits of valuable hardwood
, I thought.
Surely the loggers wouldn’t just toss them away?
But if the trees were being cut down not for timber but to
clear the area for planting, that would explain the jetsam. Probably it was a combination of both.
You wait ages for an elephant and then an entire herd comes along at once. Like with the monkeys, as soon as we’d seen one, we saw them all. Steve and I were across the river from
Kingdom
, in the dinghy, when I saw ripples in the water a short distance away. The ripples got bigger and bigger and something dark broke the water’s surface.
‘Steve,’ I whispered, pointing. ‘I think there’s a crocodile.’ As we watched, a black head emerged – and then a trunk. It looked like the same young male
elephant and he had been sitting completely submerged in the river. Maybe they really were hiding from us? Whether or not it was the same animal, and he had finally got that swim, he was alone. I
had read that young males were often cast out from the herds by the dominant male once they became seen as a threat. He lifted himself out of the water and on to the bank, climbing easily up the
slippery step, his hide slick with mud. And he ambled off again.
After that a whole herd came right to the water’s edge, exactly opposite
Kingdom
and
Southern
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