In parts of Indonesian Borneo, forests endure not because they are fenced off or regulated, but because they are feared. Among the Indigenous Iban people of Sungai Utik, large strangler fig trees are believed to house spirits that can mislead, sicken, or even kill those who disturb them. The belief is not abstract. It is anchored in stories, warnings and remembered loss, Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough recently reported.
One such story recounts a boy who vanished near a rice field, only to be found hours later by a towering fig. He said spirits had called to him and hidden him in plain sight. His family took him to a shaman. His name was changed, to sever the spirits’ hold. The tree remained.
For researchers, these accounts might read as folklore. Yet new fieldwork shows that the consequences of such beliefs are visible on the land. When the Iban clear fields for farming, they leave large strangler figs standing. They also leave a buffer of forest around them, creating islands of vegetation scattered through farmland. The practice is called dipulau, a word that translates simply as “island.”
These islands occupy only a small fraction of the cultivated landscape, perhaps 1 or 2%. Still, they matter. Different species of strangler figs fruit at different times of the year and draw birds, primates and wild pigs when other food is scarce. Hunters once waited beneath them. Today, wildlife still moves between forest and field along these living stepping stones.
Measurements from Sungai Utik show that strangler figs are as common in farmland as in nearby old-growth forest. Those in fields often grow larger, unchallenged by neighboring trees. The result is an agricultural landscape that retains pockets of ecological relevance, not because of policy, but because of tradition.
The belief system that protects these trees is fraying. Most villagers are now Catholic. Some younger residents question whether spirits truly punish those who cut a fig tree. A few have done so and lived without obvious consequence. The taboo holds, but less tightly than before.
That erosion matters because the belief has a real effect. It preserves trees that shelter species and seed regeneration. It shapes land use without external enforcement. Researchers call this autonomous conservation. It depends on shared norms rather than incentives or threats.
Whether one accepts the presence of spirits in fig trees is beside the point. What matters is that a forest has been spared, repeatedly, because cutting certain trees felt like crossing a line. In a world searching for ways to protect what remains, that line deserves attention.
Read the full article here.
Banner image: Topik, a local guide in Sungai Utik, West Kalimantan, next to the extensive aerial roots of a strangler fig. Image courtesy of Ditro Wibisono Wardi Parikesit.
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