- In Indonesian Borneo, a community of Indigenous Dayak Iban have fought for the past four decades to protect vast swaths of rainforest that are home to a diverse number of songbirds.
- For the Sungai Utik community members, these birds are regarded as messengers sharing omens and warning from spirits, and must therefore be protected under customary laws that restrict deforestation and the hunting and trading of the birds.
- With the widespread songbird trade across Indonesia driving a decline in songbird species, ornithologists say the traditional knowledge and forest management practiced by groups like the Dayak Iban offer a holistic approach to conservation through a reciprocal relationship with land and forest.
- To ensure this traditional knowledge is passed on to younger generations, Dayak Iban elders share it at an Indigenous school, and a young filmmaker from the community has made a documentary about their struggle to protect the forests.
Deep in the rainforests of Indonesia’s West Kalimantan province, the piercing calls of birds reverberate to the rhythm of the gushing Utik River that has long nourished wildlife and the lifeways of the Dayak Iban people. For others, the bird calls might not warrant attention, but here, members of the tribe pause to listen for what they believe are the omens and warnings from spirits.
In recent decades, songbird populations have declined in the country due to deforestation and the songbird trade. However, in the face of this declining biodiversity, the Dayak Iban of Sungai Utik village continue to care for a Paris-sized swath of rainforest and maintain customary laws to protect what they call their “omen birds.” These include species like the white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabarincus), scarlet-rumped trogon (Harpactes duvaucelii) and Diard’s trogon (Harpactes diardii), whose songs reverberate over the treetops of Borneo’s forests.
“The culture of listening to omen birds is getting rare now, but we still view the birds as messengers in Sungai Utik,” says Hermanus Husin, 66, a Dayak elder from Sungai Utik. Omen birds are sacred species that bring messages, he says. “To protect these birds, we know that we have to protect their homes: the forests.”
For generations, the Iban of Sungai Utik have maintained their stewardship of the land, for which they were recognized with an Equator Prize from the United Nations Development Programme in 2019. The elders have physically defended thousands of hectares of lush Bornean rainforest against illegal logging, oil palm plantations and other corporate interests since the early 1980s.
To this day, sources say all generations in the village owe the lush forests and omen birds to their ancestors’ and elders’ resistance against extractive companies over the past 40 years. Dayak Iban filmmaker Kynan Tegar, 18, recaptured the elders’ journey to protect their homes and heritage in his recent documentary, Indai Apai Darah (“Mother Father Blood”). Kynan says was inspired by the deep connection the elders have with their land, forest and rivers.
Customary laws to protect birds
Among the many diverse omen birds found in Sungai Utik, the Brahminy kite (Haliastur indus) and rufous piculet (Sasia abnormis) are ones people look out for when receiving omens and warnings. They’re said to be messengers of both good and misfortune.
“Killing them means bringing bad luck to the family or the community, so the local people here do not hunt the birds,” Husin tells Mongabay.
For the birds to thrive, the tribe says the forest should remain healthy and intact. The customary forest spans 9,450 hectares (23,350 acres), or nearly the size of the city of Paris, of which about 6,000 hectares (14.800 acres) is reserved as community protected areas. That makes conserving them challenging and rigorous, Husin says.
Unlike the majority of Indigenous groups and local communities with claims to customary lands and forests across Indonesia, which amount to 8 million hectares (20 million acres), the Dayak Iban’s rights have been recognized by the state since 2019. Their imposition of customary law means they’re strict about the cutting of trees in the protected areas.
“Every year, based on our customary law, we determine how many trees we can cut down. For now, it’s three trees for each house every year, and it applies equally to everyone in the community,” Husin says. “The person shall be fined in case of violating the law.”
The community elders make sure everyone complies strictly with the law, as this serves as a model for the young generation to follow in their footsteps and lead the path to community conservation.
“If we follow the same [extractivist] mindset, cutting down every tree in sight, all in the name of development, there’s no way to live,” Appai Janggut, spiritual leader of the Sungai Utik longhouse, says in the documentary. “That’s the same as slowly taking our lives.”
The community has an Indigenous school where the elders pass on the cultural and traditional knowledge of medicinal plants and omen birds to the next generation.
However, ensuring this transfer of knowledge has become increasingly challenging as more young people aspire to move out of the community for higher education, filmmaker Kynan tells Mongabay. He says he hopes his film is one way to engage other young members of the community.
“There was a sense of shame in my father’s generation for being Indigenous. They had to cover up their tattoos or they would lose their jobs,” Kynan says. The tattoos worn by Dayak Iban men have many different meanings and signify the travels they’ve gone through in their lifetime. “This continual discrimination kept them from having a sense of pride for who they were, and this film was a way to connect back to our roots, reclaiming our identity.”
Holistic conservation model
The Dayak Iban elders’ wisdom and knowledge for safeguarding their lands and forests are what ornithologist Panji Gusti Akbar says is key to effective songbird conservation.
Many bird species across Indonesia, including those the Dayak Iban consider omen birds, face the risk of habitat loss. That’s why forest conservation efforts, such as those practiced in Sungai Utik, are important to preserve many of these species, Panji says. The rufous piculet and white-rumped shama, both omen birds, are cases in point. The piculet, one of the smallest woodpeckers in the world and the shama are both impacted by tree cover and the “songbird crisis” is driving huge demand for the latter species due to its plumage and unique voice.
The practice of keeping songbirds, which are entered into competitions for money, began on the island of Java and spread throughout the Indonesian archipelago with the exodus of migrants from Java over the latter half of the 20th century. Researchers estimate that 70 million birds are kept across 12 million homes in Java alone.
That may mean there are more caged birds than there are in the wild, Panji says, which represents a major conservation threat.
The illegal trade in songbirds, many of which are omen birds, has swelled to the extent that Panji says some forests that were home to these birds now stand silent and desolate. For the Dayak Iban, trading in omen birds goes against customary law.
“That’s why the local wisdom, culture and strategies are critical to a holistic conservation model, Panji says.
He adds the conventional model of conservation, where outsiders come into a community to dictate what species must be conserved, without trying to understand what those species mean to the community, is an outdated on.
“In scientific aspects, that might do, but I think as conservationists we have to change our mindset that we know better than the local community,” Panji says. “We have to acknowledge that local wisdom and knowledge are important to make sure conservation projects effectively work.”
Banner image: A Dayak elder with a young member in Sungai Utik. Image by Indai Apai Darah, Kynan Tegar / Wayfinders Circle.
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