Fifteen years ago, the only human sounds to break the peace of the Benau Sajau forest were the rustles of leaves as hunters stalked bearded pigs, or the soft thuds of foragers digging for tubers. Today, that tranquillity has been replaced by the roar of chainsaws, encroaching ever deeper into the ancestral territory of a small community of Indigenous forest dwellers with each passing month.
“The sound is no longer distant,” said Samsul, 40, as he foraged for tubers with his family in late December 2025.
Samsul belongs to what’s thought to be the last group of Punan hunter-gatherers in Indonesian Borneo to still lead a nomadic way of life. First brought to the attention of the outside world by a study that started in 2018, the community call themselves the Punan Batu, or Cave Punan, after the limestone caves in their territory. Made up of roughly 20 families, they live deep in the Benau Sajau forest, their territory straddling the border between the provinces of North and East Kalimantan. There, they continue to rely on the natural bounty of the forest for a lot of their food and other resources.
I joined Samsul on his foray into the forest last December after the community invited me to visit and report on their plight. With us were several other community members, including his wife, Siyui, 30, and their mothers Tegen and Kabo’oh, both in their 70s. As we walked, their eyes scanned the surroundings until they spotted a slender tendril emerging from the earth and winding its way up into the surrounding branches.
The dogs accompanying the party began to bark. Tegen inspected the vine, judging its roots ready for harvest. The others gathered around to help, kneeling to pry the ground open with wooden stakes before unearthing the tubers with their bare hands.
The Punan Batu call this taga, a type of wild tuber that resembles cassava. Taking only what they needed, they carefully reburied unwanted roots so they will yield new tubers.
Taga is a staple food of the Punan Batu. Samsul told me there are dozens of different varieties and the community eat them alongside wild game. But in recent years, they’ve noticed animals have become increasingly scarce, and the supply of taga is thinning.
“There are no more tracks,” Samsul said, referring to the trails of wild pigs and deer that once filled the forest.
“The forest is shrinking,” he added. “If the forest goes, these tubers won’t grow. They cannot survive in bright, open spaces where the canopy is no longer dense.”
Pushed out of the forest
During my visit, several members of the community told me how logging has been degrading their forest for the past decade, threatening the finely balanced ecosystem that sustains their nomadic way of life. According to Samsul, the relentless encroachment of land clearing and plantations is forcing them to venture out of the forest more frequently to find ways to make ends meet.
He explained the group visit nearby villages to source basic necessities, bartering or selling foraged forest produce – honeycomb and seasonal fruits like durian – in exchange for cooking oil or rice. But community members complained these tradable goods are also becoming harder to come by. Slowly, they are having to adapt to the modern world, but it’s happening with a deep sense of unease.
“Even if we go to the city, we must still have our forest. That is where we hunt and forage for tubers. We aren’t used to the food in the city,” said Samsul.
Heri, 41, who represents the community in the Sajau village administration, explained that in the forest, the Punan Batu can obtain everything they need for free, and money only becomes necessary when they travel to urban areas. There, however, even 100,000 rupiah (USD 5.79) feels worthless.
“In the city, if you have 500,000 rupiah, what can you actually bring home?” he said.
Mired hopes
As well as to trade for basic necessities, Samsul said the group have, for the past decade, been forced to venture out of the forest more and more in search of support and official protection.
It is not an easy journey. Their main destination is Tanjung Selor, the capital of North Kalimantan. It takes several hours for the Punan Batu to get there, trekking through the forest and travelling by river boat to reach the nearest road, from where they can hitch a ride on passing vehicles.
The journey towards gaining the protection they need has also been a long one. Thanks to the support of the Nusantara Nature Conservation Foundation (YKAN), in 2021, they were able to apply for official recognition as an Indigenous group, known as a “customary law community” (masyarakat hukum adat). The Bulungan Regency government granted this status in April 2023.
With that in place, the next step was to seek recognition from central government of the group’s ancestral territory. This required technical assistance from YKAN and researchers, who helped map their traditional roaming areas. Based on this evidence, in June 2024, they applied for a total of 18,360 hectares to be designated as their “customary forest” (hunan adat).
This status would give the Punan Batu formal, legal control over the territory they have considered home for generations. But since they submitted their application, it has made only slow progress through the system.
Linda Novita Ding, forest ecosystem controller with North Kalimantan’s forestry agency, explained the forestry ministry conducted field verification in July and August 2025. This led to findings that have complicated the situation and are still in the process of being considered by the central government.
“There are areas with forest utilisation business permits that fall within the proposed boundaries of the Punan Batu’s customary forest,” Linda revealed. These permits grant companies the legal right to exploit areas of forest – known as concessions – for commercial purposes, such as the extraction of timber or the development of plantations.
The permits have done more than just slow the progress of the Punan Batu’s application. They have also had a significant impact on the size of the customary forest now likely to be granted. Linda explained areas that overlap with existing concessions have been excluded, as have areas that have already been cleared. She noted the total area of customary forest now being considered by the government comes to around 6,000 hectares, covering only the limestone caves in which the Punan Batu have traditionally taken shelter, and what she called their “immediate foraging grounds”.
“It is certainly not in accordance with the size of the proposal,” Linda said. She emphasised that if there are no further complications, the application should be at the final stage, but she could not confirm when the designation would be issued.
“The decision rests with the ministry. We will just have to wait for the result,” she said.
Julmansyah, director of the forestry ministry office tasked with dealing with customary forest claims, confirmed Linda’s account of the situation. He added that “illegal encroachment for palm oil has already occurred,” in several places within the proposed boundaries of the Punan Batu’s customary forest.
He claimed to have reported this to the relevant authorities, but declined to say more on when the Punan Batu’s application might be finalised.
“We will complete this along with several other customary forest proposals,” he concluded.
Disappearing home
As the Punan Batu wait, their forest continues to disappear around them. Over the past three years, the East Kalimantan branch of advocacy group WALHI (the Indonesian Forum for the Environment) has observed ongoing deforestation on the eastern side of their claimed customary forest. Based on their spatial analysis, 429 hectares of forest were lost in 2023, followed by 1,505 in 2024 and 1,214 in 2025.
“If this is allowed to continue, the Punan Batu community could disappear,” warned WALHI East Kalimantan Executive Director Fathur Roziqin Fen. He urged the government to immediately halt the forest clearing. “What will be designated as Indigenous forest if the forest itself no longer exists?”
During my visit, members of the community told me that since they started informing the government about the threats to their forest a decade ago, logging machinery seems to be moving more aggressively into their territory.
“In my simple mind, it feels as though we are inadvertently clearing a path for the oil palms to move in faster,” Samsul said.
“The more we report, the faster our forest disappears,” he said.
Asut, an 80-year-old elder, said all he wants is legal rights over the community’s remaining forest. “A hundred million rupiah can vanish in a single month,” he said. “But with my forest, my children can still eat.”
“The government must act quickly to manage our forest. Don’t let the forest we see here disappear,” he said.
