Adaptation of Hunting Activities to Forest Degradation: Comparison between the Indigenous Kenyah and the Punan in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Abstract

Traditionally the Kenyah and the Punan were forest dwellers in upriver areas of Borneo Island, depending highly on hunting and gathering as well as swidden agriculture. They were and are still skillful hunters with similarities and differences in some aspects such as hunting tools and hunting strategies. To maintain their stable income from hunting and gathering, the Kenyah and the Punan had been ‘forest protectors.' This understanding was reasonable because primary forests had existed in their original villages even though they had lived there for hundreds of years before moving downriver. But their circumstances changed with the advent of logging concessions in the 1980s, forest fire in1997-1998, 2005, enforced ‘resettlement projects' from 1986 to 1996, coal mining since 1999 to present, and other human activities. The worsening forest degradation has declined sedentary population of wild pigs, which traditionally are the main source of meat and cooking oil. For their survival, the Kenyah and Punan started to change hunting strategies and livelihood to adapt to forest degradation. We conclude that the Kenyah dealt with the new situation better than the Punan.