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Young Dayak generations look back to their ancestors who once protected Borneo’s forests, while demanding accountability from today’s oligarchs for the ongoing deforestation. Photo courtesy of Anak Dayak.
By Masri Sareb Putra, M.A.
Across Borneo today, a quiet but powerful transformation is unfolding. Young Dayak men and women are no longer willing to inherit silence.
The Young Dayak are speaking out through social media, community discussions, essays, short videos, and digital campaigns, openly challenging the forces that continue to destroy their ancestral forests. What they express is not merely anger, but a deep awareness of responsibility toward the future.
One statement frequently repeated across online platforms captures the essence of their concern:
“They may only live another 10 or 20 years. We still have 50 or 60 ahead of us. Where is their responsibility to future generations?”
This is not an emotional outburst. It is a moral argument rooted in time. Young people understand that they will live longest with the consequences of today’s choices, including deforestation, polluted rivers, lost biodiversity, and the erosion of indigenous ways of life.
For young Dayaks, the forest is not an abstract symbol or a romantic landscape. It is the foundation of identity, culture, and survival.
Without forests, there is no meaningful future, economically, culturally, or ecologically. This awareness has shaped a new generation of activism that is confident, articulate, and increasingly global in perspective.Oligarchy, Exploitation, and the Long History of Forest Loss in Borneo
The criticism voiced by young Dayaks is well founded. From the New Order era, through Reformasi, and into the present day, Borneo has endured relentless exploitation.
Logging concessions, mining projects, and large-scale monoculture plantations have expanded under the banner of development. In practice, this development has largely benefited a small elite, while indigenous communities absorb the long-term damage.
This historical pattern is carefully documented in the book Eksloitasi Dayak Masa ke Masa (Exploitation of the Dayak from Era to Era.)
Read Eksploitasi Dayak Masa Ke Masa
The book reveals how political power and corporate interests have repeatedly aligned at the expense of local people. Forests have been reduced to commodities, rivers transformed into waste channels, and indigenous communities pushed to the margins of their own land. The destruction has not been accidental. It has been structural, legal, and systematic.
Within this reality, discussions about forest-based tourism cannot be naïve. Tourism that follows the same extractive logic risks becoming another layer of exploitation. Roads are opened, resorts are built, and local culture is displayed as an attraction, while control remains firmly in outside hands. Such tourism does not protect forests. It simply repackages them.
Digital Activism and Global Awareness for Saving the Rainforest
One of the most striking features of the young Dayak movement is its strong presence in digital space. Platforms such as “Anak Dayak,” “Dayak Kalbar,” and AMAN, the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago in West Kalimantan, function as constant early warning systems. Through infographics, short videos, field documentation, and firsthand testimonies, they expose deforestation and its consequences in real time.
These platforms do more than inform local audiences. Many deliberately address the international community. Borneo is consistently described as one of the world’s remaining tropical rainforest strongholds, a vital carbon sink and a reservoir of biodiversity.
By framing forest destruction as a global issue, young Dayaks invite shared responsibility. This is not a request for sympathy, but a call for accountability.
In this context, forest-based tourism becomes more than an economic opportunity. It becomes an educational and political tool.
Visitors are not merely travelers. They become witnesses. When designed responsibly, tourism can tell the true story of the forest, including who protects it, who threatens it, and what will be lost if it disappears.
Rethinking Forest-Based Tourism for a Just and Sustainable Future
The path forward is clear, even if it is not simple. The future of forest-based tourism in Borneo must break decisively from oligarchic models of development. It must be led by local communities, rooted in ecological responsibility, and governed by ethical accountability. Forest tourism should strengthen indigenous stewardship, not weaken it.
This form of tourism must prioritize long-term sustainability over short-term profit, indigenous governance over external control, and learning over spectacle. Tourism should contribute directly to forest conservation, strengthen local economies, and uphold cultural dignity.
Young Dayak voices have already pointed the way forward. They remind us that development should be measured not by corporate timelines or political cycles, but by generational time. Forests grow over centuries, not within election terms. Decisions made today will shape lives far beyond those who make them.
If these voices are ignored, forest tourism in Borneo risks becoming the final chapter of destruction. If they are taken seriously, forest tourism can become something far more meaningful. It can become a living partnership between nature, culture, and justice.
The future of Borneo’s forests is not only a local concern. It is a test of global conscience. And the young Dayak generation has made one thing unmistakably clear. The forest must survive, because they intend to live with its future.
Why the International Community Must Act on Borneo’s Deforestation as a Global Crisis
The destruction of Borneo’s rainforests can no longer be treated as a local or regional problem. These forests are among the world’s most important tropical ecosystems, playing a vital role in regulating the global climate and preserving biodiversity.
As deforestation accelerates through logging, mining, and industrial plantations, massive amounts of carbon are released, intensifying climate change and destabilizing environmental systems far beyond Southeast Asia.
Because of this, the international community has both a moral and practical responsibility to act. Support must go beyond expressions of concern. It requires sustained global advocacy that recognizes deforestation in Borneo as one of the major environmental crises of this century.
Governments, international institutions, environmental organizations, and responsible investors must pressure destructive industries and strengthen protections for forests and indigenous land rights.
Young Dayak voices have made it clear that they are not asking the world to speak on their behalf, but to stand alongside them. International engagement can amplify indigenous leadership, support community-based forest protection, and promote ethical forest-based tourism.
Protecting Borneo’s forests is not an act of charity. It is a shared responsibility to safeguard a living system that sustains the future of the planet.
