Kayan Mentarang National Park

Kayan Mentarang covers about thirteen and a half thousand square kilometres along the border with Sarawak and Sabah, which makes it the largest protected block of rainforest in Borneo and part of the Heart of Borneo trilateral conservation area. Most of it has never been logged. What distinguishes it administratively is that it was reclassified in 1996 from strict nature reserve to national park specifically so that the Dayak communities living inside - Kenyah, Lundayeh, Punan and others, who had been there long before the boundary was drawn - could stay and manage land under a collaborative arrangement, with customary tenure mapped and recognised. Access is genuinely difficult: small aircraft to grass strips, river boats, and permits. Clouded leopard, sun bear and rhinoceros hornbill are present.

What you actually see

• Borneo's largest protected forest - thirteen and a half thousand square kilometres, mostly unlogged.
• Community co-management - Dayak customary tenure mapped and recognised inside the park.
• Highland Dayak villages - Kenyah, Lundayeh and Punan settlements in the interior.
• Border wilderness - continuous with protected forest in Sarawak and Sabah.

When to go

June to September. A week, given the travel.

Honest expectations

Access is by small aircraft or multi-day river travel and needs permits and advance arrangement. There is no tourist infrastructure. Visits into community land must be arranged with the communities.

Nearby

Malinau and Long Bawan are the access points; the Malaysian border runs along the park.