KALIMANTAN
This vast, wild territory used to be known for its headhunters. Today orangutan head the list of attraction

Kalimantan is Indonesia’s name for its two-thirds of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island (after Greenland and New Guinea). The rest of Borneo, on the north coast, is formed by the East Malaysian provinces of Sarawak and Sabah, and the tiny independent oil-rich sultanate of Brunei. Kalimantan, with an area of 540,000 sq km (200,000 sq miles), represents nearly 30 percent of the nation’s land area, but with less than 5 percent of the population.

The centre of Kalimantan is made up of mountain ranges, whose summits seldom exceed 1,500 metres (5,000 ft). great rivers cascade down from the highlands, and are often navigable for hundreds of kilometers, serving as crucial channels of communication between the communites of the coast and the interior. The river highways attract tourist who want to travel deep into jungle regions to visit the Dayak tribes, once headhunters who still dwell in communal houses.

Logging has been a major industry since the 1960s. Mills have been developed on the lower reaches of many rivers, notably near Samarinda and Banjarmasin. Logs are floated downstream to be processed into planks, plywood and other wood products. There are other cash crops – pepper, rubber and palm oil – but most people survive on subsistence farming, hunting and fishing.

Kalimantan’s coast features mangrove swamps and low-grade forest. An inland belt of gentle hiils and alluvial plains marks the start of the jungle. The main canopy is about 25 metres (80 ft) above the ground, occasionally punctured by towering Dipterocarpus trees with crowns reaching 70 metres (230 ft). Valuable ebony and ironwood trees are scattered throughout. In the colder reaches of the central highlands, trunk are often draped in moss and lichen.

The wildlife is just as exotic. Orangutan, found only in Sumatra and Borneo, head the list, along with the endemic proboscis monkey. Other forest denizens include the clouded leopard, leaf monkey, crab eating macaque, the pangolin anteater and the tiny tarsier, with its huge eyes and an ability to swivel its head 180 degrees. There are about 600 species of birds, among them magnificent Argus pheasants and hornbills, considered sacred by the Dayak peoples.