HISTORY
East Kalimantan is the biggest province in Kalimantan Island cover region with a width of 245237 Km2 with number of populations more than two millions men. East Kalimantan is the richest of natural sources area in Kalimantan. This region is rich of oil, coal, gold, wood and natural gas. The most of Natural Resources of East Kalimantan, have exported and give high contribution for the nation income. Based on history note, the eldest Kingdom of Hindu in Indonesia is reside in this area. This conclusion based on note of inscription that being found in 'Lembah Wahau', in north of Tenggarong that coming from 5 century. This eldest Empire of Hindu had mentioned that has done contact with India and Sriwijaya Kingdom. The substitution of this Hindu Empire is Sultanate Kutai that emerging at third century with its capital of in Tenggarong. Kutai then become the center commerce of Denting in this region and Tenggarong become the biggest and busier town in East Kalimantan, finally shifted by Samarinda and Balikpapan at 20 century. Kalimantan was known as one of main oil producer area in Indonesia. The exploitation of Oilfield in this area have been done since 1897 started from delta area Mahakam River, while distillation area of oil is focused in Balikpapan.

In 1913, the oil production in East Kalimantan can yield half Indonesia's production oil (when below Dutch power) and Balikpapan reach it's glorious from the abundance of oil production in this Mahakam River area. Mahakam River is busy river with crowded river traffic. Mahakam River has become the main roadway in East Kalimantan. Various vehicles of downstream river go upstream in this river. From navigable Samarinda, Mahakam River towards finite upstream of 523 Km passes various towns and villages, which located in this great river periphery. Public around river build their house above pillars so that remain to be safe although river water bubble up when it rains.

Pampang culture village and international tourism in East Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo
Human Organization, Winter 2001 by Schiller, Anne
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Within the year, the mayor of Samarinda declared that he had become "obsessed" with developing Pampang as a tourist object. Speaking with a reporter from a national newspaper, he compared the village to a tourist venue in Europe: "In Polendam, the Netherlands, there is an area for culture tourism that presents the traditional way of life of the Dutch hundreds of years ago, like wooden shoes, colorful shirts, hairstyles, and more. There is even an opportunity for tourists to have their picture taken as a souvenir. Now, that's what we are going to do to the people of Pampang" (Suara Pembaruan 1993). In an essay written for a local paper, the mayor suggested that, by pretending to live in economically difficult straits, the Dayaks of Pampang would actually improve their standard of living: "When one discusses the pattern of life of past times, by modern indicators, it was a life of poverty. But in portraying the cultural life of past times, the workers will be shown in `artificial poverty.' That means that the workers perform as professionals...and receive a wage appropriate to their job. It's clear that this is the place where they work, but their wages will enable them to live comfortably outside of the place that they work" (Husain 1993b:8).
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Yet besides its annual harvest festival, Pampang apparently offered little of interest to visitors seeking a Dayak cultural experience. A domestic tourist in 1993 was quoted as follows: "My impression when I heard that Pampang was a culture village was that I would be exposed to a unique atmosphere, although I didn't know what the buildings, the environment, and the lifestyle would be like. But I didn't find anything like that." That newspaper report noted that although the poor condition of the road led visitors to imagine that they were entering an authentic Dayak village-that is, it felt remote-when they arrived they found that homes in Pampang were simply like those of [poor] city dwellers in Samarinda (Suara Pembaruan 1993:1). Most peculiar of all, Pampang lacked a "longhouse" (lamin). Longhouses are the traditional dwelling places of many of Kalimantan's indigenous peoples and sometimes house several hundred persons at once. The absence of a longhouse in a village that was promoted as being rich in Dayak culture seemed glaring (Dyson 1992). Responding to that criticism, a teacher in East Kalimantan's state-run university, herself a well-known Dayak activist, countered that Pampang wasn't called a culture village for its architecture. She added it is considered a culture village "because of the presence of the Dayak Kenyah tribe that maintains its customs and traditions, as in performing harvest ceremonies, the manner in which they receive guests, and by means of their dances, songs, and skill in carving" (Laden 1992:6).
Despite this flurry of interest, little changed over the next few years. A long dry season in 1994 caused a severe water shortage-the river on which Pampang's residents
depended for water became dangerously low. The path to the village went unimproved. A meeting hall was built to serve as a longhouse for holding social gatherings (rather than for residence), but it deteriorated rapidly. The traditional law chief finally took his case to the public in a newspaper interview. "Why should Pampang have to bear the designation of `Culture Village' if, with the addition of that title, we, Dayak Kenyah citizens, are expected to take on a heavy burden?" he queried. "The longhouse is falling apart, the instruments and accessories here are insufficient to portray the face of the Dayak Kenyah. There aren't even any authentic Dayak clothes in this village, and it's difficult to find any examples of home industries or handicrafts. So just what is the characteristic of a culture village that is here in Pampang?" (Kaltim Post 1994c:7).
Borneo Forest Faces Extinction
Niall McKay 02.13.04 | 2:00 AM

Over the past two decades, the volume of timber harvested on Borneo exceeded that of all tropical wood exports from Latin America and Africa combined.
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Illegal logging is destroying the equatorial rain forests of Indonesian Borneo, bringing the island, once known as the lungs of Asia, to the brink of an ecological disaster.
Not only has 95 percent of the forest legally set aside for logging been cleared but nearly 60 percent of protected national parkland has been illegally logged, according to a new report in this week's Science by professor Lisa M. Curran of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
The illegal timber is turned into plywood and is exported to other parts of Asia. It is also used to build furniture for Japanese, European and U.S. markets. The island of Kalimantan's valuable old growth, called meranti (Philippine mahogany), is used for hardwood flooring and provides wood trim for luxury automobiles.
If the current rate of destruction continues, the report says, Kalimantan, which is about the size of Texas, will be completely stripped of its rain forests in the next three years. This will have a drastic effect on the wildlife, the native population and the local weather patterns. Animals such as Malaysian sun bears, hornbills, bearded pigs and orangutans are rapidly becoming endangered species, according to the report.
The report combined aerial and satellite photographs with data from geographical mapping systems and remote sensing devices. It was carried out between 1999 and September 2003.
"Already, what is left (of the forest) is too small and too fragmented to support many of the species that depend on the forest," said Curran, director of the Tropical Resources Institute at Yale University. "For the first time we have seen large mammals, such as orangutans and Malaysian sun bears, wild boar, starving."
There are more than 420 different birds and 222 mammal species in Kalimantan, half of which depend on the rain forests for survival. Furthermore, the indigenous people of Borneo, the Dyaks, depend on boar as a primary source of protein.
"Clearly the animals are in crisis," said Curran. "In Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, for example, the orangutan population will drop by a third in the next couple of years."
Curran said she believes that at the current rate of decline, many of the rain-forest animals will become extinct in less than 10 years. "We won't see extinctions until we reach some sort of threshold," she said. "We are very close to that threshold now and once we reach it will be too late to stop."
The rapid growth of oil palm plantations, which have undergone a 40-fold increase since 1992, is further exacerbating the problem because large areas of the rain forest have been clear-cut to make way for the crop, and the plantations serve as barriers to migrating animal populations.
Kalimantan's rain forests' growth cycles interact with the El Niño weather system. Forest fragmentation has transformed El Niño from a regenerative force into a destructive one. As the forest is cleared, droughts become more frequent and severe, giving rise to more frequent wild fires.
Borneo is the first land mass the El Niño-Southern Oscillation weather system hits. And the El Niño wildfires in Borneo and Brazil in 1997 and 1998 created more carbon dioxide emissions than the whole of Western Europe's industrial output, according to Curran.
There are many explanations offered for the destruction of the rain forest, including a lack of oversight from a decentralized government and opportunism by locals.
But Curran said she believes that the real causes of the destruction of the forest are international demand for the timber, a massive industry suffering from a lack of legal timber, and corruption that started during, but is not limited to, the former Suharto dictatorship.
Over the past two decades, the volume of timber harvested on Borneo exceeded that of all tropical wood exports from Latin America and Africa combined. At its height in the mid-1990s it was a $9 billion-a-year industry. Now it's nearly gone -- more than 90 percent of the Indonesia's timber production is illegal.