Tewet, the last keeper of Borneo I SLICE I Full documentary

[Music] [Music] toward was born 66 years ago at the foot of these mountains in borneo where his tribe the dayak basap lives [Music] we call these the meringue mountains we've climbed to their very tops all the way up there i've been everywhere we searched for caves but we did it little by little a little bit at a time i've been everywhere i tell you and i've explored it all [Music] these mountains which we can imagine hold thousands of caves are a dream come true for a caver like me since 1992 i've been exploring borneo in search of the prehistoric traces hidden in these caves with a team of archaeologists we've uncovered astounding ten thousand year old paintings all of this would have been impossible without the help of the people who know these mountains best and above all tuit who has become a friend this is the greatest explorer of these mountains packed to it it's been roaming through these mountains for 40 years somewhere in a cave down there you'll find it's written pactuette 1966. [Music] nicknamed the dayak of a thousand caves by his fellow villagers tewet has a good reason for exploring each nook and cranny of these incredible cliffs the nests of swallows or swiftlets these birds spend 40 days building nests out of their protein-rich saliva unfortunately for them their nest is edible once reserved for emperors the nests nowadays sell at over 4 000 euros a kilo to rich chinese who use them in soups reputed for strength and vitality [Music] over the course of our expeditions and despite his customary discretion a sign of greatness in indonesia it turns out to it is the leading swallows nest hunter i've heard that production is down everything is changing so fast in borneo at the age of 66 stuart continues to head out into the forest but for how much longer i want to capture his account of this unique career we meet again seven years after my last trip to borneo and it seems just like yesterday the last time we were together stuart lives in a traditional dayak home here nothing has changed this fish is good i was born in 1947 where were you born they're upstream there was an abandoned house an empty house that first time there were lots of mosquitoes i also see his wife and his two grandchildren far removed from the hustle and bustle of indonesia's sprawling urban centers this tiny diag village appears to be a haven of peace the community boasts barely a thousand members i went into the forest as early as let's say the age of 11 to enter the caves nearest here i could climb if there were caves that reached a few meters back and my parents let me go in them no sooner had they arrived then they confirmed that the production of nests in the caves responsible for the village's prosperity had hit an all-time low the community had reached a critical juncture what has happened to the swallows why are they disappearing and above all how will these free men manage not to lose their freedom by working in the increasingly numerous palm oil plantations i want to find out like every true dayak tuits got the travel bug it didn't take long to convince him to join me on this two-week autonomous expedition the role of every wise elder is to predict the fate of their community we set off onto its final round to the farthest reaches of his terrain it takes several pierrots to carry all of our supplies fuel cam gear and so on we mustn't overlook anything or else we'll simply have to live without it i'm impatient to leave these inhabited zones behind and venture back into the forest surrounded by nature finally we set off at last [Music] hewitt knows this river like the back of his hand each little tributary an obstacle if everything goes smoothly our team should reach the heart of the forest in the mountains after four days on the river 80 kilometers is the crow flies but triple that with all the twists and turns [Music] stewart has chosen his team carefully at the helm his nephew or hoon an expert boatsman and at the prowl his friend ham a nest hunter like himself his spiritual son so to speak [Music] yes [Music] so [Music] at last the foothills of the meringue mountains from here on there'll be more and more rapids and dead tree trunks but hewitt directs the pirogue like an orchestra conductor [Music] [Music] a cliff banana trees a watchman shack this looks like a spot for a cave with swallows nests o hung steers straight for a cave hidden in the vegetation i hope we'll find something to harvest me too there's some there are nests i'll scrape you catch them down below it's almost off i didn't catch it okay [Music] there are three types of swiftlets that make edible nests these nests aren't as good quality since they're composed partly of plants it's the side that stuck to the rock it makes you strong and gives you vitality after a day in the perogue under the blazing sun it's time to stop we are almost right on the equator here the sun sets all at once at 6 pm this is a perfect spot to set up camp chewie knows the best camps are close to the river on high ground in case of a flash flood this is the dry season but you never know the water allows us to bathe and cook and generally make everything a little better it's not like it used to be before fishing was too easy there's no more crayfish now but before the amount of fish has dropped and i have no idea how many we're going to catch tewet is a dayak that's what the natives of borneo's great forest and rivers are called he learned to walk paddle and fish at the same time his rare ancestors lived in harmony with the seemingly inexhaustible nature [Music] [Music] oh here you go [Music] [Music] stewart and ham have told me about a cave with an evocative name gua sungai the cave of the river swallows used to nest here they want to see if they've returned no sooner do we enter then we have our first surprise the cave's guardian this three meter long snake can snatch a bat or swallow right out of the air though it's a garter snake its bites are fearsome since they don't easily heal [Music] it isn't the cave's only surprise true to its name a river runs through the cave during the rainy season the water dissolves the limestone and creates these prolific concretions and hanging basins could this be an evil spirit changed into stone it's no surprise that the island's natives have always maintained a complex relationship of attraction and repulsion with the underground realm [Music] here all sorts of underground animals live in pitch dark though the nest hunters have managed to overcome their fears in the interest of economics they nevertheless don't linger once their business is completed to it however is a true caver he explores out of curiosity and is always on the lookout here he finds neither swallows nor paintings only a large bat colony and the two species don't live together oh my there are a lot of bones make it crispy it's going to be delicious this isn't cooked enough tomorrow we may have to walk the river is too low and it's going to be hard on the water or eight [Music] third day we leave the bengalon for a tributary of clear water that bears the same name as the mountains meringue this is the key for penetrating to its stomping ground it drains a forest that is preserved today where few people venture starting here will have only ourselves to depend on so since it is hidden beneath the vegetation this river doesn't exist on the maps but jewitt has never needed a map the places are inscribed in his memory handed down from generation to generation between the rocks and the rapids both men and gear suffer and we experience more and more mechanical troubles will we actually manage to reach the source by perroc something tueret has only accomplished once before [Music] [Music] um [Music] legend has it that this area is haunted by evil spirits today there's nothing to fear the noise of the motor scares demons away [Music] [Music] i was skeptical yet here we are at the source of the meringue the river emerges from a cave it's a resurgence the spot where a subterranean river emerges above ground [Music] come on should we go into the cave across the city pan shall we follow the river [Music] the river disappears underground on the other side of the mountain its water has a unique colour in the region tinted by iron oxide tuite was the first one to make the connection back in the nineteen sixties at the time he gave the river and the mountain the same name meringue which means golden in dayak basa from here on we'll continue on foot along the trail opened up by the nest hunters crossing a pass to reach the giant cedepan cave the spot where the river enters the mountain it's the next goal of our expedition approaching sederpan seems to have put tuat in a talkative mood he recalls the adventures of his youth when we'd find a cave we'd spend the night there and the next day we'd explore it even further depending on how many days we needed to survive we'd also bring our water everyone had to carry five liters and when we ran out we'd have to go back down and start over again [Music] ham is the spiritual son of turit and yet they are worlds apart he arrived in the region 20 years ago to pay for his son's education and never left careful whereas twohead hunts in a group ham is a lone wolf i met him not long enough to do it and he's never missed one of my missions informed by who knows what forest hotline i [Music] oh no i'm used to climbing the mountains alone i'm used to being alone in the forest these sawtooth mountains are my passion don't you get tired of doing this work yeah yes it tires me out now because it's laborious it's become laborious since the prices have dropped looking but i haven't come up with a solution [Music] uh [Music] we set out with a bare minimum it takes all the diax ancestral know how to locate the trails overgrown by vegetation and get our bearings in this land of pinnacles crevices and valleys that lead nowhere after two days on foot we reached the golden waters of the meringue now all we have to do is follow the river to cedepan cave before you'd get lifetime rights to caves like cedepan cave i'm the one who discovered it still brings in money but it's not mine anymore the administration took it away [Music] at last we reached cedapan cave the small stronghold is not very welcoming armed guards protect the cave from greedy invaders there have been several attacks by thieves in the past few years causing the death of at least one attacker hey it's me ham ham i'm into it [Music] go [Music] ever since the authorities seized the cave armed guards have been positioned here and the government auctions off the harvest there was too much money at stake for politicians to keep out of it [Music] the guards don't have it easy all alone up in their citadel they're bored stiff as they wait for an unlikely enemy to happen along [Laughter] has been the overseer of the cave for seven years he only gets to see his family and two children a few days every couple of months yes it's hard to live in the mountains it's a struggle to survive and support the family that's why we keep doing it my wife and kids need to eat that's the husband's responsibility the boss says that since production and the price of nests has gone down he's had to lower our pay [Music] the atmosphere among the guards has completely changed from what i saw 15 years ago the first time i visited the harvests were plentiful the baskets filled with nests and money was rolling in [Music] at the time we produced about 100 kilos once my father and i entered the cave and it was like a war we got threatened with spears it was a big mess people were swimming in the river [Music] tote makes an exception and agrees to show us the state of the colonies in sederpan's unauthorized zone [Music] once more our explorer sees the vast caverns of his youth it's a complex underground network of caves situated one on top of the other and branching out over seven kilometers [Music] it's a forest fire that ruined the setup and cave the smoke came into the cave and stagnated inside it was black with smoke as a result the number of nests immediately started to drop there were fewer and fewer until now our last harvest didn't even yield 30 kilos [Music] this footage was taken back in the golden age of cedepan before the great fire of 1997 in 15 months time one-fourth of borneo went up in smoke here we can see the methodical raiding of the nest even ones with eggs in them sometimes when we find some we eat them like this it's very healthy to swallow them the job used to last four days for a harvest of 110 kilograms worth 36 000 euros in just a few minutes in this very cavern they could easily fill a two kilo bag an almost industrial scale over exploitation whose result wasn't hard to predict [Music] demand for the nests just keeps rising and the price along with it 250 gram bags sell for a thousand euros apiece in airports [Music] the first time we didn't venture very deep into the cave we only really got to take advantage of the cave for two years only three guarded caves like cedepan remain whereas ten years ago there were dozens if i understand correctly according to the guards it was the great fire and not over exploitation that caused nest production to drop our team continues on to a cave that belongs to tuat and that he's managed to exploit behind the government's back ham does the harvesting for tourette when he goes on his solo rounds since these are white nests ten times more valuable than the black nests of cedepan it's worth going out of your way to see 800 meters into the cave at last we find the spot where the colony of white nest swiftlets live the last harvest only yielded about 20 nests oh no the colonies died out yes it was the last colony it's all over before there were always nests here now it's practically empty usually we could gather two or three hundred nests [Music] it should be all white like here it should be bigger two fingers and the old ones can't have babies first the forest burned then too many people harvested nests taking them before they were even finished we all feel sick about it maybe we'll have to make plantations in order to live you need capital for that at least we won't be dependent on the nests anymore i'm moved by my friend's realization and consternation is there no other alternative no way to carry on with their ancestral way of life in the meringue mountains on the way back i suggest to tour that we meet with the traditional chief in the village i have a few questions for him careful don't fall don't get water in the boat [Music] [Music] once we reach the big river we come across vessels loaded to the guilds with woodcut into planks and beams it's a far cry from the heavy traffic i saw on the river 15 years ago rafts of floating trees lined up endlessly all the way to the sawmills of bengalon owned by indonesians of chinese origin how much per cubic meter 40 41 40 euros for a cubic meter yes 40 euros a cubic meter in other words 11 times lower than the current world prices for marante which makes the best plywood the tropical forest is being bled dry and for sums that are ridiculously low what's this wood used for to make furniture in houses where does it go it's exported to java but that was 15 years ago since then forest legislation has evolved in indonesia at least that's what the official announcements say my friends recognize my doubts with self-assurance our boatman or hung docks before an encampment he explains that this cabin is his and he prepares our midday meal [Music] lead me along a cleared path no doubt about it now we're in the logging operation stewart seems embarrassed he downplays the operation here they take only the trees they need the ones that are useful not little trees like those but maybe one day there'll be no trees left then what it's not over yet when it's for local use that's enough but there are no longer boats to transport them abroad no they don't do that anymore why not because there are no more logging permits it's impossible to export it's only for villagers use nothing more the ban on foreign export of wood is good news it limits industrial operations and keeps them from getting out of hand and even if i don't like watching a tree in the forest get massacred by a chainsaw we mustn't forget that the dayak have always cut the trees they need in order to build homes and boats we can imagine sustainable management of the forest that would allow them to continue living from it without depleting it [Music] is this your house you're building no it's for my brother are you a worker i'm just a worker a wooden house in this extremely humid climate ages quickly to it takes me to see the traditional village chief pak akim confirms my fears it's not only the disappearance of the swallows that is endangering the community how are we supposed to survive for our gardens everything's been taken it's finished before we didn't have to go far to hot animals there used to be deer but now since the oil palms there's nothing left the entire mangrove forest has become oil palms it's not good it destroys the forest [Music] i wanted to find this patch of forest i'd taken pictures of one misty morning 18 years ago it too has become a desert of palms jacked up on chemical fertilizers and other herbicides but the worst is yet to come these open pit coal mines are ripping holes 50 meters down into the earth and they keep creeping closer to the meringue mountains [Music] in town blind buildings vertical flocks of birds money men invest in these ursats caves or swiftlet farms where nests are now produced this is the future indonesia has reserved for its wildlife we're very concerned about this but we need to think about what's left of our forest too [Music] isn't there any hope a brighter future for the community i'm suffocating in the village we set off once more with ham and tuite for a patch of primary forest nestled at the foot of the meringue mountains don't count on me to give away its location [Music] [Music] our destination is a secret cave perched high in the cliffs and concealed by vegetation a place that holds another treasure that tuite is keeping watch over on our way we'll take a quick inventory of the biodiversity in this hotspot [Music] twelve years ago i had an unforgettable encounter [Music] a leopard cat a nocturnal creature caught in a trap [Music] can you cut the rope [Music] usually there's lots of it along the trail for the well versed like to it the forest is a medicine cabinet this used to be used as a hair conditioner natural medicine for women to nourish and enhance the hair yet one more reason to protect this forest that contains drugs unknown to modern medicine what do you know tuat the botanist and traditional practitioner truly this man never ceases to amaze me this is used as medicine when one vomits blood the leaves have veins one side is green the other red the one with thorns is not medicinal we use it to make sauce great the leaves are edible it's called it smells good it's [Music] and apply it to wounds suddenly i asked hewett if there's anything to help my back i get an almost instantaneous reply creeper a drug used for lombargo you brew it up into a tea i tried out that very night a success a little bitter though why oh here's some stones it's a wet stone yeah yeah [Music] this is how our ancestors did it [Music] [Music] last night at camp i asked ham if he knew where we could find orangutans ham seems sure of himself yet we've been turning in circles for an hour he uses every trick in the huntsman's book but to no avail here's a nest it's empty but it hasn't been for long he whispers orangutan means man of the forest in indonesian this tale this great ape is only found in borneo and sumatra it is an endangered species i'm pleased a few individuals have found a haven of peace in this isolated forest of the meringue mountains but what about the rest [Music] the slope is steep nearly vertical and his age it's quite a feat but tuat is highly motivated just a hundred meters higher his famous treasure awaits in a cave this time the treasure is not edible yet it just may offer his community a second chance [Music] stuart is worried since he knows his treasure is fragile but he is reassured with his very first glance yes there they are they're the paintings [Music] [Music] perhaps the man was bigger and stronger than us [Music] for swallows nests at the time we didn't pay attention to these hand paintings [Music] when we met 15 years ago he guided me and my team of archaeologists to this cave it's crazy there's red ones and brown ones you see look with the band too [Music] there too there's more there are lines too look at that look at this here this is the most beautiful of the 35 decorated caves we've discovered and studied in borneo look there it's amazing it's like a little lizard [Music] they're everywhere the whole ceiling is painted in homage i named the cave gouache look the paintings continue all the way here hold on this is amazing how many does that make is this the 11th cave 31 32 in there so 30 60 about 100 obviously this tracing technique is not micrometrically accurate but it's adapted to the field conditions to the remoteness of the caves and the fact that we're only here two or three days at most whereas it would take three months to make a perfect tracing it lets me get the exact dimension to the paintings and to reconstitute them later on the computer based on a complete series of photos these paintings are absolutely unique dating from over ten thousand years ago they are an important find in terms of world heritage back at the time we urged stuart to protect them in the hope that one day amateur adventurists would come to admire them as tourists in the wake of these archaeological discoveries the indonesian government has declared the meringue mountains a natural reserve a vast national park is being created that will include the deep forest caves and all the limestone mountains of the region i'm afraid we'll lose this heritage from the past we have to watch over it and manage it well we must protect what remains to ensure our future i hope it will still exist for our grandchildren and can become a good business and create healthy cooperation with tourists i'm prepared to truly dedicate myself to this project [Music] i hope this treasure will allow tuat and his community to make a fresh start by opening the doors of their paradise to small groups of respectful amateur adventurers and in this way preserve their mountain way of life and the caves of their ancestors [Music] you

Channel: SLICE

Views: 637,744

Keywords: documentary, documentaries, shortdoc, shortdocs, slice, slicedocs, Tewet, island, borneo, knowledge, mountain, forest, biodiversity, travel, trip discovery, trip, discovery, caves, nest, nests, cave, guide

Id: 4XQbGRSvtDo

Length: 49min 32sec (2972 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 05 2021