Travel Guide Parc National De Batang Ai

For the past four centuries, Batang Ai has been home to the longhouse Ibans, who still circulate today via a maze of river branches that criss-cross the park. To get there, you'll need to take a pirogue, sometimes for several hours (bring headgear, sun protection and water). Close to the border with Kalimantan, the Ibans were threatened by Indonesian attacks at the time of the Konfrontasi (Suharto's attempted invasion of Sarawak and Sabah when the two states became part of the Federation of Malaysia in 1963). Displaced for their safety at the time, they were displaced again 20 years later when the hydroelectric dam was built in 1985. Today, Batang Ai is the only reserve in Sarawak where the local community participates in the management of the park, which was declared a national park in 1991. The Iban people were involved in the planning of the reserve and agreed to restrict some of their farming activities to defined areas. In return, they have created a tourism cooperative (accommodation, transport, guides and handicraft sales). We come to Batang Ai to discover this people with such a remote culture and their longhouse lifestyle, as well as the large population of wild orangutans that cohabit with man. The Ibans play an invaluable role in the preservation of the orangutans, which are almost sacred to them.