KUCHING, Dec 22: Take a glimpse of the everyday life of some indigenous communities living in the Heart of Borneo, in the coffee table book titled ‘Colours of Borneo: Panda CLICK! With Communities in Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan and Kapit, Sarawak’.
Communities from eight villages in Kapit division, Sarawak and Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan who came together and shared their perspectives of history, traditional knowledge, challenges and concerns through photographs in an interactive conservation visual programme called ‘Panda CLICK!’ by WWF-Malaysia and WWF-Indonesia, are the main people behind the book.
This coffee table book is the English version of the Bahasa Malaysia-Bahasa Indonesia book published in 2019 titled, ‘Warna-Warni Borneo: Panda CLICK! Bersama Masyarakat di Kapuas Hulu, Kalimantan Barat dan Kapit, Sarawak’.
The 186-page book is a reflection of a colourful Borneo – known for its diverse peoples, cultures, landscapes and nature, showcasing stories of the people who live in Ulu Katibas, Song and Baleh, of Sarawak in Malaysia, as well as those in Hulu Gurung and Empanang of West Kalimantan in Indonesia.
With a total of 50 participants, the programme ran for about 10 months in Sarawak and a year in Kapuas Hulu between 2018 and 2019.
What makes this book unique is that the photographers are the communities themselves, from farmers to homemakers, who share their world with readers through the camera lens.
These photographs also summarise the profile and landscape of their villages, customs and traditions, their relationship with Mother Nature, as well as the issues and challenges they faced.
This book is a joint publication by WWF-Malaysia and WWF-Indonesia under the transboundary conservation project, Green Economy in the Heart of Borneo, and supported by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, Germany.
Panda CLICK! is a form of visual communication to document events related to communities and their surrounding environment, and it has been used widely in Indonesia to advocate for positive changes among rural communities.
The word ‘panda’ is synonymous with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that uses a ‘panda’ as its logo while CLICK! is the acronym for ‘Communication Learning towards Innovative Change and Knowledge’.
The book is available for public viewing at WWF-Malaysia’s website or Global Land Use Change’s website. — DayakDaily
