NewsBorneo’s ‘omen birds’ find a staunch guardian in Indigenous Dayak Iban elders

Borneo’s ‘omen birds’ find a staunch guardian in Indigenous Dayak Iban elders

  • 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”).

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