ABSTRACT
The literature on human-environment interactions in Borneo and environmental change is substantial but during the last fifteen years debates about the processes and consequences of these interactions have intensified, particularly in relation to commercial logging operations. Indeed, there has been an increasing shift of attention to South-East Asian rainforest issues since the early 1980s. A barometer of this increasing interest in Borneo is the Borneo Research Bulletin, which, in recent years, has published numerous papers on environmental issues. The literature both in and outside the Bulletin ranges from the rather popular propagandist attacks on the tropical timber industry from various of the NGOs and pressure groups to detailed scholarly studies of such matters as shifting or swidden cultivation and indigenous environmental knowledge (for examples, see King, 1993a). There is now an urgent need for informed debate based on the evidence of scientific research (see Primack, 1991).
