Dipterocarp forests are a type of tropical rainforest found in Southeast Asia characterised by high rainfall, high humidity, and a warm climate and by the presence of tall trees belonging to the Dipterocarpaceae family. These towering trees can reach heights of over 60 metres and are keystone species integral to the forest ecosystem. Borneo, the world’s third-largest island, is home to some of the oldest rainforests in the world, believed to be 130 million years old. It is also where a large portion of the remaining Dipterocarp forests are and has 270 known species of dipterocarp trees, including 155 endemic species. In this article, we look at the world through the lens of a dipterocarp tree in Borneo. 

The sky moves from shades of blacks and purples to oranges and pinks, casting the treescape in a soft, warm glow. As the sun crests the horizon, warmth and light ripple through the forest, stirring the life that resides here. The nighttime hum breaks into a crescendoing symphony.

I feel life wake within my folds. The early risers in the treetops inform those shaded by my canopy that the new day has broken. Birds who roost in my branches bellow their morning chorus, each contributing their own song or sound. Primates greet the day and one another with bellowing calls; they creak and clatter through the forest as they propel themselves from branch to branch harvesting fruits. Elephants rustle through the undergrowth, parading in succession. Small creatures shuffle and bustle, from the canopy to the forest floor. Life busies in a routine that’s been in the making for millions of years, in rhythm with the rising and setting sun: diurnal creatures follow the light, and the nocturnal follow the night. 

Even within my own body, I feel the new day as sap flows upwards through my trunk and into my branches. Light dances through my leaves, and they begin their alchemy of rearranging molecules, expelling the oxygen that so many of my forest kin need. Illuminated by sunlight, everything shines more vividly: the greens of the treetops more intense, the reds and yellows of the flowers of the epiphytes more brilliant. Even in the lower reaches and on the forest floor, where only dappled light finds its way, the edges of life appear sharper without the softness of night.

Despite the sharper edges, the bounds of living beings can be difficult to define. My leaves coalesce with those of my neighbours, gently touching, brushing against one another in a green blur of many shades. Collectively, our leaves amass to trillions. We are social creatures, us trees. I cherish the companionship of our community, comprised of many generations; there are elders who have been here for centuries, and there are those who have been here for only a few decades. In the understory, there are those even younger, who haven’t yet reached the heights shared by me and others. It is perhaps only with a vantage from above the canopy that the enormity of our forest can be felt. When the now-young trees arrive in the upper reaches with us, they too can marvel at the wonder of this place from on high. 

There are countless kin that comprise the forest, from the mega to the minute. We’ve grown into being together over aeons. We are never alone. Vines wrap themselves around me; orchids bloom in the creases of my limbs; ferns sprout on my woody body, unfazed by gravity. They each host their own communities of beings – small creatures whose entire universe may exist within the petals of a flower or the cradle of a leaf, knowing nothing of the great beyond. 

We all depend on each other in almost all that we do. We are a social and biotic community, an emergence of beings that makes the forest a living entity in its own right. The beings that call me home are as much a part of me as my woody biomass. I’ve housed countless generations of families. Many have never left the sanctuary of my leaves or the furrows of the bark of my branches, nor did their ancestors and nor will their descendants. Some will only ever know the treetops, others will only ever know the understory or the forest floor.

As much as these creatures need me, I need them. I rise from the soil, which in itself is a huge community of beings, many of whom are in the business of decomposition, recycling nutrients and making them available to me and others. Down there, they know little of the life up above. They thrive in the moist conditions created by the shade we trees and plants provide and the rains that fall each afternoon. 

We, the forest, create the rain. Trees and plants draw water into our bodies through our roots and expel water vapour from our leaves into the atmosphere, where it gathers in the sky before falling to the earth again. The water trickles through our leaves and branches, offering water to all as it passes through the forest’s layers. When it reaches the forest floor, it soaks into the soil, flooding the huge threaded network of mycorrhizal fungi that knits together the entire forest. These fungal networks are the lifeblood of the forest. Their threads connect me to my neighbours and to everyone else whose feet are planted in the ground. Through them, we communicate; we discuss, coordinate and share knowledge; and we make gifts and exchanges to keep the forest’s trees healthy and, in turn, our entire community thrives. 

Conversations between beings are happening throughout the forest in many languages. We all have our ways of communicating and understanding the world. Our perceptions and senses vary wildly. None of us is able to know the reality of the forest fully; our understanding is confined by the senses we have. This enormous diversity is what makes this place so alive and wonderfully complex.  

Our forest fits into a much larger community at a planetary level. We are entwined with planetary systems and other communities of beings around the world. Here, in this forest, us dipterocarp trees are most prevalent; but as the forest climbs the slopes of the nearby mountains, other trees take up the mantle. These places – and nearly all places – lack definite edges. They bleed into one another and weave into a rich tapestry that covers the Earth. More than that, we ensure one another. Our forest exists in conjunction with the ocean and the poles and the deserts; with the winds, the clouds, the rains and all other elements. For example, it is only with the atmospheric conditions of El Niño, a natural climatic event that begins in the Pacific Ocean, that us dipterocarp trees flower, which can be as infrequent as every ten years. This is how interconnected all communities and all places are. 

Yet stark divisions between places are appearing. From high up, I can see that where our forest once tapered into mangroves or montane forest or swamp forest, there are now huge gauges of razed land. There, those who were anchored by roots lost their lives; I grieve those who were once familiar features of the treescape, many of whom had lived lives centuries long. Those who weren’t physically connected to the ground lost their entire world, their entire community. Some managed to escape, forced into places unfamiliar to them, with communities they didn’t know. I notice that those creatures often return to those razed places, either in defiance or forgetting that they are no longer welcome, the concept of hard boundaries unfathomable to them. 

News of this assault spread through the threaded networks of the forest, causing a stressful stir. We have fended off attacks from pathogens and parasites before, but this is something different. From a distance, as seen from above the canopy, the perpetrators appear to be metal monsters with jagged teeth and yellow bodies. But to our horror, the real assailant is one of our own. 

Humans have been our forest kin since time immemorial, working in cooperation with others to carve out a living as part of our community. Some still do – some still embody the shared wisdom of all forest inhabitants that we need one another socially and biotically. Others exhibit a forgetfulness of this. They are blind to the true scale of their actions. I question what could have caused this forgetfulness and blindness. Under what false pretences could they become so misguided? What is driving such widespread death and devastation? 

In the context of my lifetime, it is happening fast. For centuries, I’ve watched over this place, standing side by side with my neighbour dipterocarps and the vast other tree types of this forest. Up until only very recently, every day was the same in the most beautiful, colourful and alive way. Kin came and went. The forest is defined as much by death as it is by life, but it happens cyclically. When one kin passes, many others benefit, and the entire community is enriched. We all understood this social contract, even the humans. Death shouldn’t happen as one mass event spanning kin of all kinds. But, from up high, that’s what I see happening at the peripheries of our forest, the onslaught getting closer and closer. 

Many of my forest kin are oblivious to what’s coming. I fear our days are numbered; I am reminded that this is likely the case by the thundering brattles of machinery that are so out of place in the soundscape of the forest. I hope our humans remember before it is too late. I hope they are unblinkered and see the richness of our world – you don’t need to be a towering tree to have such perspective. Because what will they do when they are alone, without their community and kin?