This book is based on a collection of papers presented at an international seminar on “Environmental change in native and colonial histories of Borneo: Lessons from the past, prospects for the future,” held in Leiden, the Netherlands, in August 2000. The Borneo environment and its peoples have been seriously affected by the recent development of oil palm plantations, continued logging and mining, devastating forest fires, and controversial transmigration. This book takes a historical look at these changes as well as continuity in Bornean environments and societies “from native, colonial and national perspectives” (p.1).
The book consists of three parts. The essays in the first part depict the history of practices and/or ideas held by mainly Chinese traders (Eric Tagliacozzo), by indigenous people extracting forest resources for profit and livelihood (Bernard Sellato and Cristina Eghenter), and by colonial state foresters exploiting forest and plantation products (Lesley Potter). These essays reveal that not only traders but also foresters and even local people did not take ideas of conservation and sustainability into serious consideration as long as resources had trade and commercial value but no local subsistence value.

The second part illustrates the process of colonial and post-colonial state rule over the Bornean land, people, and knowledge of the environment. In particular, it deals with the process of boundary-making and territorialization (Reed Wadley), the making of a discourse about “traditional, primitive and backward” interior people by state officers (Amity A. Doolittle), and changes in western views of the upas tree from an uncontrollable, fearsome, poisonous plant into a curious scientific object after Dutch control over the region was accomplished (Michael R. Dove and Carol Carpenter).

The last part is concerned with transformations in local inland societies, focusing on the Rungus of Sabah, who were largely swidden agriculturalists (George N. Appell), and the Kelabit Highlanders of Sarawak, who traditionally grow rice in both dry and wet fields (Monica Janowski). These essays show a contrast between swidden society and wet rice society with regard to the impacts of colonial and post-colonial state schemes. The introduction of landownership and the development of plantations had negative impacts on the Rungus, including the erosion of village land rights and swidden areas, social dismemberment, and the weakening of traditional social organization, while the Kelabit Highlanders adjusted well and even benefited from state projects such as modern education and infrastructure development as well as from the cash-oriented economy through the export of “Bario rice,” which has good commercial value in urban areas. The last essay (Graham Saunders) concludes this book with a discussion of myth, highlighting changes and continuities in perceptions of the Borneo environment held by indigenous inhabitants, Arabs, Chinese, and Europeans.

Having the purpose of a comprehensive study, this book is characterized by cross-country and interdisciplinary approaches to various subjects concerning Bornean environments and social histories. It is, however, slightly regrettable that the authors consist only of scholars working in the US, Europe, and Australia who approach Borneo with anthropological, socio-ecological, historical, and interdisciplinary approaches. Neither Bornean scholars nor East and Southeast Asian researchers contribute to this book, despite the existence of a number of Asian scholars working on Borneo. This book, therefore, not only depicts histories of human-environment interactions in Borneo, but also conveys “western” scholarly views, reconsiderations, and the challenges of studying “native and national” perspectives concerning the Borneo environment.

It is also disappointing that while the authors make good use of Dutch and British archival materials, Indonesian and Malay documents, fieldwork, and interviews with local people, none refer to original Chinese documents and materials. Not a few books and articles on Chinese societies in Borneo, based in part on Chinese documents, have been published; reference to these would have contributed to a more comprehensive study of the Borneo histories. Finally, some of the authors deconstruct colonial and post-colonial state discourse on local people and their ways of land use, arguing in favor of the role of adat (local customary law) in promoting sustainable resource management. Such idealization of adat should be reconsidered carefully because adat deals not only with resource management but also with social relations, and some of it might be difficult to accept in present-day society.