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| Dayak youth deliver a message: protect Borneo’s sustainability by keeping its rivers and waters clear and clean. Doc. FB Dayak Youth. |
By Jelayan Kaki Kuta
On a sheer limestone cliff in the interior of Borneo, a young Dayak man stands barefoot, phone raised, sunlight glinting off water so clear it reveals every stone beneath the current.
The photograph, posted moments later on Facebook "Anak Dayak" attracts little global attention. A few likes, a handful of comments. Yet behind the image lies a message far more consequential than vanity or leisure.
Across Borneo, Dayak youth increasingly frame themselves against rivers, waterfalls, forested gorges, and untouched hills. They pose at river bends where the water runs glass-clear, or waist-deep in streams cold enough to sting. To an outsider, these images resemble a global trend: nature as backdrop, youth as subject. But to the Dayak, whose lives are braided with rivers and forests, the act is something else entirely. It is testimony. It is warning. It is hope.
In a region long promoted as one of the world’s great eco-tourism frontiers, these images function as quiet resistance against a development model that measures prosperity in tons of palm oil or grams of gold. For the Dayak, the most valuable resource has always been water. And water, they insist, is life itself.Eco-Tourism’s Hidden Currency: Clear Water
Borneo has been marketed to the world as a green Eden. Orangutans swinging through ancient canopies. Rivers winding through untouched rainforest. Indigenous cultures living in harmony with nature. This narrative has fueled eco-tourism from Europe, North America, and East Asia for decades. But beneath the glossy brochures lies an unspoken truth: eco-tourism depends less on forests alone than on water.
Clear rivers are the first casualty of environmental destruction. When upstream forests fall to logging or plantations, sediment clouds the water. When mining operations expand, mercury and chemicals seep into streams. The river becomes sick before the forest appears wounded.
For Dayak communities, water clarity is a living indicator of ecological health. A river that turns brown is not merely polluted; it signals the breakdown of a covenant between humans and the land. Fish disappear. Drinking water becomes unsafe. Ceremonies tied to river cycles lose their meaning. What tourists see as scenery, the Dayak experience as survival.
The irony is stark. Eco-tourism thrives on the image of pristine rivers, yet industrial activities upstream undermine the very conditions that make tourism possible. Dayak youth, acutely aware of this contradiction, have found a modern language to express it. Their selfies are not random. They are visual evidence. “This is what we still have,” the images say. “Do not take it away.”
No Gold of Life, No Palm of Life, Only Water of Life
In many parts of Borneo, promises of prosperity arrive in familiar forms: gold mines, oil palm estates, timber concessions. Each comes with pledges of jobs and infrastructure. Each leaves behind altered landscapes and damaged watersheds.
Dayak philosophy offers a different calculus of value. There is no concept of “gold of life” or “palm of life” in their worldview. Wealth is measured not by extraction but by continuity. Clean water that flows year after year. Forests that regenerate. Rivers that feed both body and spirit.
Water, in this understanding, is not a commodity. It is a moral measure. A community that protects its water honors its ancestors and safeguards its descendants. A community that allows its water to be poisoned forfeits more than health; it loses dignity.
This belief now intersects with global environmental discourse in unexpected ways. As climate change intensifies and water scarcity grows worldwide, the Dayak insistence on water as supreme wealth sounds less like tradition and more like foresight. What was once dismissed as “indigenous wisdom” increasingly aligns with scientific assessments of sustainability.
The images shared by Dayak youth thus operate on multiple levels. They assert identity. They critique extractive economics. They propose an alternative future in which development is measured by the clarity of rivers rather than the height of export figures.
Saving Rivers Means Saving the Future
The call emerging from Borneo is deceptively simple: save the rivers for the generations to come. Yet behind this simplicity lies urgency. Once a river system collapses, recovery can take decades, if it happens at all. Mercury contamination lingers. Watersheds stripped of forest struggle to heal. Cultural knowledge tied to river ecosystems fades when the ecosystem itself is gone.
For the Dayak, the river is both archive and inheritance. Children learn stories, skills, and values along its banks. When young people photograph themselves in clean water, they are not only documenting beauty; they are asserting a right to continuity. They are saying that future Dayak children deserve the same relationship with water that shaped their ancestors.
Eco-tourism, if reimagined responsibly, could amplify this message. Not as a superficial attraction, but as a partnership that prioritizes river protection, community stewardship, and long-term ecological health. Tourists drawn to Borneo’s rivers must understand that their clarity is fragile, contingent on choices made far upstream and far beyond the forest.
In this sense, the Dayak youth with smartphones are unlikely environmental ambassadors. Their images circulate quietly, but their implications ripple outward. They challenge policymakers, investors, and travelers alike to reconsider what constitutes true wealth.
In a world increasingly defined by scarcity, Borneo’s lesson is clear. The most valuable inheritance is not buried underground or planted in endless rows. It flows, clear and cold, through the heart of the forest. Save the rivers, and the future still has a chance.
