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Introduction: During large mast fruiting events in Central Borneo's rain forests, which may occur every two to five years (Ashton, Givnish, and Appanah 1988
Caldecott 1988
Dove 1993d), semisedentary Penan Benalui leave their homes in the villages of neighboring swidden agriculturalists for temporary forests camps to gorge themselves on fruit, fat wild pigs, and processed sago palms (Puri 1997a). Fruit collected from the surrounding area is brought back to the camp where it is processed and shared among all residents. At the time of abandonment, two to eight weeks later, the camp is littered with piles of discarded seeds from more than a dozen tree species. Within a year, the site is covered with a carpet of seedlings, It is as yet unknown whether these actions alone will lead to the establishment of permanent fruit groves in the forest, but it appears that in some locations a preexisting <i>pulung bue'</i>, a grove of fruit trees, is at least perpetuated by this annual visit. Once established, the area may serve additional functions as a campsite for Penan and other collectors of forest products and, if close to current settlements, as a hunting patch. Its primary function remains, however, the production of fruit, a favored ad important part of the diets of all peoples on the island of Borneo. The Penan have several kinds of forest camps besides fruit camps. Some are fairly extensive and are designed for specific activities, such as processing sago palms (<i>Eugeissona utilis</i> and <i>Arenga undulatifolia</i>, among others), collecting nontimber forest products, or working in gardens and rice swiddens. These activities require extended stays, and so the camps may be occupied for several weeks at a time, periodically through the year. There are many more temporary forest camps that are used repeatedly but only for overnight or short stays while hunting, gathering , and traveling between villages or other camps. Except for very steep slopes and cold mountain peaks, forest camps are found almost anywhere. It is therefore not surprising that new and old sites are ubiquitous in their occurrence throughout the forests and mountains and alongside the streams and rivers of a Penan group's territory, In this chapter, I describe the goals, methods, and some preliminary results of research directed toward understanding the long-term effects of these Penan forest camp sites and associated economic activities on the floristic structure and composition of lowland and mountain dipterocarp forest of the Lurah river valley, in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. This research involved studying the historical ecology of eighteen recent Penan forest camps (less than 40 years old) and two fruit orchards in the vicinity of a village of swidden farmersthe Kenyah Badeng of Long Peliran at the mouth of the Lurah River. Data collection methods were drawn from ethnohistory, ethnobiology, and forest ecology, while the analysis relied upon multivariate statistical techniques to compare the vegetation structure and floristic diversity of the camps and discover the potential underlying social and ecological dimensions responsible for the observed variability. The data collected during the research is here analyzed with regard to the following questions. How are forest camps chosen and what activities are associated with establishing and using them? How do we identify and date these camps once they are abandoned? Do Penan activities associated with their campsites change the structure and floristic composition of the surrounding forest and for how long? Does this impact increase, sustain, or degrade plant species abundance and diversity? What biophysical or social factors are characteristic of sites and related Penan activites that show high floristic diversity? The answers to these questions provide insight into the place of the Penan in the history of these forests. If the Penan play an important role in creating the observed floristic composition, and by extension influence animal behavior patterns, then that will have important implications for the formation of forest management policy and economic development proposals for the Lurah Valley and surrounding areas now included in the Kayan Mentarang National Park. More generally, the research addresses the role of humans in the creation and maintenance of vegetation communities in a rain forest. While research and intense political debate on the loss of bio-diversity is well under way, research on the factors that promote and sustain biodiversity is still rather maverick, analogous to studying people who do not get AIDS rather than studying HIV and its victims. In both cases, researchers are searching for the underlying conditions that result in health. Unfortunately, success stories in either case are exceedingly rare. While some research has demonstrated that tropical forest farmers, past and present, coexist with high levels of biodiversity, and in some cases may even be responsible for those levels of biodiversity (see Meilleur 1994), this study addresses the consequences of the activities of nonagricultural societies (see Roosevelt et al. 1996). The typical view of forest hunter-gatherers as benign denizens living with the rain forest is reexamined in light of the studys premise that there may be long-term cumulative effects of purposeful, though sometimes subtle, human manipulations of vegetation. These issues are discussed following the presentation of the research results.
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