National Park After Dark - Bruno of Borneo: Gunung Mulu National Park (Part 2)

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

Last week we got familiar with Bruno Manser, his early life and what brought him to the island of Borneo. In part 2, we discover just how far he was willing to go to advocate for the protection, the people and places he came to love.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Reel: Use our link and code NPAD to get 30% off your first order plus free shipping.Away: Use our link and start your 100-day trial.Prose: Use our link for a free in-depth hair consultation and 15% off your first order.Apostrophe: Use our link and code NPAD to get for first visit for only $5. For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark, part two of Bruno Mansor's story in Borneo. Hopefully this week hasn't been too grueling waiting for part two. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm glad we're doing this only a couple days. after we recorded the first one because it's fresh in your mind. It's fresh in mine. And I know you want answers.

I do. So I have them for you. Obviously, anytime we do a multi-parter, we'll do a brief recap. But if you're just jumping on now, definitely pause and go back to part one, get the full version. But essentially, let's catch up to where we were at. Unless you have anything else to say. No. Catch me up.

Refresh me. I'm ready to dive back into the story. Okay, so in part one, we talked about Bruno's early life, his experience growing up in Switzerland and what he was doing with the cows and the Alps. And the cheese and the cheese and free climbing and all of that good stuff. And what led him into this new chapter in Borneo. While he was in Borneo, he spent years with various different groups of indigenous Panan and was beginning to act as kind of like their spokesperson regarding this huge mounting concern with logging, companies felling large swatches of jungle in the Pannan territory. And Bruno's advocacy for both the Pannan and the jungle gained him a lot of notoriety,

which was kind of like a double-edged sword because it was great that he was becoming known, you know, throughout Borneo within indigenous communities for his advocacy work and kind of like he's on our side type of thing. But it also got him a lot of negative attention when it came to the Malaysian government. And they kind of have him at the moment in their crosshairs per se because they want him out. He's stirring up a lot of trouble in their eyes because he's putting what they're doing on blast to now a global audience when it comes to logging and how the mistreatment of the indigenous peoples and things like that.

So he's interfering with their money is what he's doing. Exactly. That's that's the root of it and they're pissed. And at this point, he has now escaped arrest and capture twice, but he's, just getting started. So let's get into where we left off. Not long after Bruno's second escape in the spring of 1987, the Panon banded together. In a coordinated effort, over 100 families created barriers in the middle of logging roads at 12 different strategic key points. While they weren't impenetrable, these aren't like iron fortresses or anything like that. They used what they had, which was the bare minimum. So like logs,

kind of tied together and just a rag tag kind of like team of people, whoever could show up, showed up. So it's not anything that was impenetrable by any means. Like if you had a vehicle, you could literally just drive around it. But the statement was strong and very clear. No one passes. That was the statement. And it wasn't just people standing up there in shifts because they're nomadic people. They started just setting up shop right there at the road blockades. Like they built huts. They started doing daily operations as a community at these blockades. And there were families, full families of men, women, children, everybody was there. Like, we're all going to be a problem now.

Exactly. It's like you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us, and we're settling down here. Bruno had done something amazing. He had joined together groups of fragmented nomadic, non-confrontational, shy, and elusive pinon. And now here they all were standing up boldly to speak on behalf of their rights and their jungle home. By October of that year, there were 23 different blockades manned by over 2,500 people from 26 bands throughout Borneo and different settlements that had just joined together in this big fight. And logging was actually brought to an entire standstill. Damn, so they're really messing things up.

And while the logging industry and the government were powerful, so was the media, if not more powerful, just in a different way. Because now they're exploiting what they're doing. Mm-hmm. Bulldozers were commanding, for sure, but they had nothing on worldwide media spotlight, one that was starting to pay a whole lot of attention to the plight of the Pannon. The government made the next move, well, two big moves, I should say. First, an amendment to the Sarawak Forest Ordinance, making it illegal to obstruct a logging road.

And they placed a $15,000 bounty on Bruno's head. So they made it illegal. for what they were doing so they could keep blocking and then are trying to take down who they think is like the ringleader. Mm-hmm, exactly. After this, Pannon were arrested, but they were undeterred. More and more blockades popped up, and Bruno knew the jungle very well at this point.

He has been living in the jungle for years, getting to know its ins and outs, and he remained elusive. He was using the jungle as kind of a hideout and a cover, and the network that he had created over the years of not only between, the Pannan, but also different visitors that he had coming and going. Like I said before, he had this network going and he used that to smuggle information in and out

of the jungle and onto a global stage. It is now, I know there's a lot of dates and things like that going on, but at this point, it has been five and a half years since Bruno first got to Borneo. Wow. It's a long time. But despite making huge strides in uniting the Pannan, he found himself increasingly alone because he was on the run. He couldn't stay in one place for a long time.

He didn't want to get everybody else wrapped into everything, put other people in danger. And that's kind of the last place you want to be by yourself when disaster strikes. And disaster in this particular case was a snake. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime Originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more.

Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. It's not clear what species of snake bit Bruno on the leg, but due to the thin, green body that Bruno saw slithering away after a pinch on his leg, it was likely a pit viper. This was September of 1989, and Bruno was walking alone along a river, bushwhacking, cutting his way through the vegetation when he felt the strike. It was to his shin, and he looked down to see that thin green body slip away. He sat down, applied a tourniquet to his leg, and gouged open the bite wound with his knife, where the fang marks were, in an effort to bleed out whatever toxin was there. And while pit vipers aren't the deadliest snake in the world, their venom is dead. Definitely a worst case scenario, especially where he is.

He's in the middle of the jungle. He has no way to get help. No help. Right. It's like a definite worst case scenario. Oof. So pit vipers inject hemootoxins that totally obliterate red blood cells and the surrounding muscle tissue, which prevents clotting.

So essentially, you're bleeding out. Along with this, people can also experience vomiting, dizziness, headaches, and in extreme cases, this can lead to kidney failure and death. Bruno managed to stagger back to a small Pannon settlement, but like I said, they don't travel in large groups. Generally, the nomadic Pannan, and at this point in this settlement, there's only a single young couple that's living here. But they tried their best to be there for him and take care of him, but he was overtaken with delirium. His temperature spiked. His head was, he felt like was splitting open with pain and his leg ballooned in size.

The tissue directly surrounding the bite wound became necrotic, so dead, black, falling off, essentially. His heartbeat slowed way down, his blood pressure tanked. And it was astounding that he actually made it through the night without any medical intervention at all, let alone three weeks. He lived like this for three weeks? Well, it gets a little worse because doesn't it always? Uh-huh. Three weeks later, his leg is now a gaping, open, rotting wound. And I'm going to read you a direct excerpt from his journal regarding this because, well, you'll see.

Okay, I'm ready. Okay, these are his words. Put down any food that you're eating if you're eating right now. I can tell. Just a light suggestion. A piece of flesh suddenly balloons out of the wound, as large as a squirrel head. I can see the skin that surrounds the muscle and thickens in the middle to form tendons as shiny as silk. I am scared. The muscle, three fingers thick, protrudes further each day and suddenly exits the wound as long as a banana together with pus.

The muscle between the calf and shin has detached itself below the knee and is now hanging like a long horn out of my leg. The next day, the muscle feels cold. I pinch it with my fingernails and it feels completely numb. Fed up with prolonged pain, I decide to remove it. I carefully cut into my own flesh. I feel no pain. I feel no pain and there is no blood. I sever the protruding mass of muscle piece by piece. And to my amazement, the pieces of meat do not rot. Even five days later, they look the exact same. Flies do not dwell on them and it does not smell foul. This shows the unimaginable power contained into just drops of the yellowish clear venom. So he cut off his own muscle inside of his leg. Because it was hanging out. Yeah, and he couldn't feel it. No, bleak. Oh. But.

Oh my God, that's just wild. And you have to also think of the setting he's in. Borneo is known for its insects. I remember at the beginning, the first episode, you said there's like hundreds of species of insects there. Yeah, so just like a gaping, open, rotting wound, even though like the pieces that he cut out that were necrotic and obviously directly affected with the venom. There's other healing going on, obviously, because there's pus and. I know the doctors we used to work with hated when we said it was pussy. So purulent material was coming out.

You know, obviously there's stuff that would be an attractant to insects of all kinds. So by no means is this a clean, sterile situation. He's just basically trooping through it. I can't imagine he's still using that leg. He is not at this point. He's pretty much out for the count. More muscle remained and he tried extracting it with a fish hook. Sorry.

Oh. I was not prepared for this. Okay, hold on. I have to finish the sentence. But the fish hook kept getting caught on his exposed bone. Uh, yes, I'm happy you finish that sentence. Yeah, it was rough. The hallucinations continued and his condition deteriorated.

At one point, he even prayed to die. But he took the continuous, steady flow of the purulent material as a good sign. After a month of this, four whole weeks, antibiotics finally reached him. But after seven weeks, he still couldn't walk or put any weight on that leg. He managed to get letters out to his friends and family back in Switzerland who were becoming increasingly more concerned for him. His health, his status as a wanted man. Like, he had a lot going wrong for him in their eyes and they're very concerned.

And in letters, Bruno had alluded to considering wanting to turn himself in, to which his loved ones in Switzerland were really taken aback by because he had fought for years to fly under the radar and not do that. So they actually pulled all of their resources together and formulated a very interesting plan. Are they going to evacuate him? They're going in. They're going in. In March of 1990, his friend George volunteered to be the one to risk it all, basically, because they were going to sneak Bruno out of the country. That's the kind of friendship I want. That's what I expect from my friends if I'm stuck in a, I want you coming in on a helicopter in the middle of the night, like Kim Possible, like climbing down a rope and Kim Possible. Remember Kim Possible. Yes, I wanted to

be her so bad as a kid. Call me, beat me if you want to reach me, you know. Mm-hmm. George had contacted several different travel agents and booked 27 different flights in and out of various cities within Sarawak. He brought new glasses with him, which were Bruno's prescription, so he could ditch his signature glasses that he always wore. It was kind of like one of his, like things people recognize him with. They look like John Lennon glasses, like the little circular glasses. Oh, okay. So he brought new ones to totally switch them out. He also brought along some blonde hair dye. He met up with another friend named Anja once in Sarwalk, and they posed as a couple before going on a different flight. Once in Limbang, George continued on his own, left Anja behind,

and he was smuggled in the back of a pickup truck to avoid detection along city streets and then down the bumpy logging roads until they went no further. From there, he was guided into the jungle where he met with Bruno, who he had not seen in person in six years. I'm sure he looked a little different. Oh yeah. And he was actually in the book. The author describes how, I wouldn't say taken aback, but kind of just like surprised at the physical appearance of Bruno because he, he's, looked exactly like a Pannon. Like even down to like his tanned skin, his feet had changed, like physically, physiologically, because they had started to splay out because he was always

walking barefoot. They were thickened. He cut his hair. He was wearing traditional Panan clothing, like everything. He just looked completely. His glasses were the same. And he's obviously the same person. But on outward appearance, he just had morphed. And in the book as well, I just wanted to say I consolidated that extraction plan significantly. There's like almost an entire chapter detailing every little thing that he had to do and how he wanted to like throw off basically his scent. And so he couldn't be tracked and like all the different ins and outs that not only him, but other loved ones did to get this in action. Oh, I'm sure it had to be so detailed to make this plan, but not just to make it, but to be able to get away with it when you were done. Because you're getting him out of the

country. You're going through actual security with people who are actively looking for this man. You have to have to have a really good plan. Like if he, imagine America's most wanted like he's number one. Like everyone knows who Bruno is as far as law enforcement goes. Everyone's on the lookout for him. So once Georges got to Bruno, he cut and dyed his hair, exchanged out his glasses. And Bruno stripped off his traditional bracelets and loincloth and traded them in for a blue polo shirt and jeans. He had his photo taken for a passport, which Georges manufactured over the next couple days. After several more transfers and sly sneak arounds, Bruno was aboard a plane. And of course, he seated directly next to a police officer on this flight.

The anxiety. Like, do not talk to me. Do not talk to me. Do not look at me. Mm-hmm. But luckily, his disguise worked. It was March of 1990 and six years, three months had passed since he left Switzerland. But now he was right back to where he started at his parents' home. And just because he was back in Switzerland did not mean that he gave up his fight for the Pannan and the jungles of Borneo. If anything, he just switched tactics and he got right to work.

Because now he's not flying under the radar for any government. Like he's essentially, he's a little unleashed. Like, he's free now. Yeah, he can walk around. You can do whatever he wants. The Swiss government's not after him. Right. Did he get medical attention when he got to Switzerland?

His leg ended up healing and he could walk on it. He wasn't limping around or anything. Okay, because I remember you said like seven weeks later, he still wasn't walking on it. So I just wanted if he was still like it. Yeah, it cleared up. Okay. Good. I'm actually, like, shocked.

He never needed, like, any amputations. He was okay after. Like, he did make a recovery. Her body does some crazy things. Mm-hmm. Bruno got right to work, continuing the fight for the Pannon, but life back in Europe kind of was weird for him at first and took some getting used to. Sure. The author of the book, The Last Wild Men of Borneo, put just how stark this transition was.

And I'm again going to quote directly out of the book because it's just, it paints such a brilliant picture. He says, Bruno had suffered extremes of cold and hunger and wetness and penetrating loneliness that would drive most people to despair. He had lived off of brains of deer and weak old blackened carcasses of wild boar and rats. He had walked up to wild elephants and rolled on the ground with wild orangutans. He had lived for years as a hunted man, had been arrested twice, had escaped both times, had stood up to and outwitted an entire government and its security services, and even across international borders. He had climbed limestone peaks with no ropes, thrown himself into rivers and rapids with no idea

of where the river flowed to or what was beyond the next bend. He could track wild game and build a shelter anywhere anytime. He had helped birth babies in falling rain. Children whose first moments in the world weren't filled with antiseptic hospital beds, but cold, rotting leaves crawling with ants. He had caught 20-foot pythons and venomous snakes with his bare hands and had been bitten by them and lived. He had nursed himself back to life through searing pain without antibiotics or modern medicine.

He even performed surgery on himself. Can you imagine what that does to a man return to a culture of seatbelts, antiseptic wipes, and televised nature shows where a single cockroach or a dropped fork was caused for alarm. He felt powerful and invincible. That's such a good reference of the fork. I just picture at a restaurant or you're just eating dinner and someone you're with drops the fork on the ground and they're like, oh, got to get another one. You're just sitting there like, I ate deer brains with my hands.

last week. Mm-hmm. And this reminds me, it's a totally different subject matter, but it's kind of like the same theme. And I don't know. I feel like I talk about this a lot with a lot of different people. So I'm sorry if I brought this up before. And it's a movie.

And I don't know if you've seen it. Probably not. Machine Gun Preacher. I have seen that one. Is that the one that takes place in Africa? Yes. And I'm trying to remember it. Is it in Rwanda?

I don't exactly remember the specific country. It might be a couple different countries, but Jared Butler's in it. And he goes over as like, initially as doing volunteer work and then just falls in love with the African people and especially the plight of, you know, African children that are being forced into militias and things like that. Anyway, there's one scene that has always stuck with me since I first watched this like eight years ago. And it was when he had just got back from a particularly difficult trip to Africa. He'd seen a lot of death. kids getting their parents killed in front of them, ripped away from their families, having to kill each other. Like, it was horrific. And he's sitting at the dinner table with his wife and daughter. And he's kind of like having flashbacks to that. And then his daughter is like pitching a fit because she can't get a limo to go to prom.

I remember that. And he was like, are you, do you have any idea of what's going on in the world? Like, I don't know. It's just that has always, always stuck with me. And it seems very similar to kind of like Bruno's the. stark like change of reality that he finds himself in now. I think that you could probably say that that's a good example of a story because that was based on a true story, but a lot of military personnel that military people that come home, they report the same things, coming back to normal life and seeing things that are so minor that are such a big deal when you live in a society that doesn't have the same issues as war-ridden countries or whatever's going on in that area that totally makes sense that there's such a big, big difference. I have seen that movie.

I've seen all, I love Gerard Butler. I've finally seen a movie that you've talked about on the podcast. See, and we could have a conversation about it and it's so fun. Wow. Wow. I'll watch more movies from now on. Okay. Well, not only did that kind of give him a little bit of whiplash, like the author kind of said,

he felt invincible at this point. Now he's like, I can do anything. You know, like, this is nothing. Yeah. And this power only added fuel to, to this already ignited, fiery passion that he had for this cause. Just over two weeks after his initial arrival back in Europe,

he was publicly advocating for nothing less than a full stop to logging on Panan lands and the creation of a permanent forest reserve by the end of that year, and we are now in 1990. So this is what he had been advocating for from the beginning. That was what he was banding the Panan together for. They just wanted a protected forest reserve area. that was untouchable for logging in different exploits and agriculture and things like that.

His passion and advocacy reminded people of Gandhi almost, but with an edge. His friend Roger set up a makeshift campaign office in his office that he used full-time for his job at a publishing company. And after hours, thousands and thousands of phone calls and faxes poured in from all corners of the world eager to talk to Bruno. So this is now like Bruno's like temporary office as well. He's just kind of utilizing Rogers space. That summer, strikes broke out in Australia and over 30 countries conducted strikes outside

of their Malaysian embassy offices. So this isn't just a local like wherever Bruno is. Everyone's on board. And he even went on tour. The voices for Borneo rainforest's world tour lasted for six weeks. Bruno escorted several Penan to 25 cities. in 13 different countries to speak to people in power, including governors, speakers of the house, environmental ministers, first ladies, even 20,000 people at a Grateful Dead concert.

Like, he was just anyone who would listen. He was like, this is important, and I want you to hear what's going on in Borneo, and here are the people that are being affected. Wow, and Borneo thought he was like a thorn in their side before. Imagine what they're feeling now. They have the whole world on board. Mm-hmm. He was even in communications with Warner Bros and Stephen Spielberg, who were both interested in translating his story onto the big screen.

In June of 1991, he snuck past security at the G7 Summit in London, chained himself to a 30-foot high lamppost and hung a banner, bringing further attention to the deforestation in Borneo. In Brazil, he climbed atop the 120-foot Christ the Redeemer statue and paraglided off of it straight into a giant soccer stadium, trailing a banner, proclaiming from Borneo to Brazil, save the rainforest, respect the right of indigenous people. That's so badass. That's cool. Perchuted off of the Christ statue. What a, what a sight. Is there a video of that happening? There's a picture. There is a picture of it. Okay. We need to see that. He was named outside magazines outsider of the year in 1991. All the while, he was in consistent communication with his contacts in Sarwalk, sending money to fund the efforts kind of like on the ground, so to say.

Blockades remained consistent as well with hundreds of different Panan showing up at roadblocks, all while Bruno was working abroad. So this is like a multi-pronged effort still going on here. But Bruno was far from alone in his crusade in Europe. It took an enormous amount of support from friends and family and volunteers to keep the momentum him going, risking arrest, working on the side for Bruno in his cause after their full-time job hours, raising funds and contributing their own funds to the cause. All communications also went through them because Bruno didn't have a phone.

And at times, he'd even ghost his own appearances at rallies and speaking engagements. One time, he simply just didn't show up because he had stumbled across a cave and wanted to explore it. It's like, sorry, didn't make it. There was a cave. That was cool. It's like, I was really busy. Mm-hmm.

And that rubs some people around. way. You know, it's like they're doing a lot for him and he's kind of doing whatever he wants. Mm-hmm. He had been away from Borneo for years now. And despite being a wanted man there with a price on his head, 15 grand, it probably spiked up over the years after all this, all these shenanigans. Mm-hmm. He had been sneaking in and out of the jungle again. In Borneo? Mm-hmm. It was 1996. He was sneaking in and out of the jungle now for five years. Holy. This guy? This guy is brave. Brave. Brave is a good. good word. Does he have different, um, I imagine he must change his looks when he comes in. He's got that

fake passport already. I'm not exactly sure if he, I'm sure there was some sort of disguise or manipulation of documents when he was going in and out of the jungle. But yeah, he was doing it. He's ballsy. I feel like at this point he's getting like a maybe even a little reckless. He's just walking right under the noses of everyone that is looking for him. And, And not only was during his time sneaking in and out, he was starting to ramp up his efforts other than just peaceful protest. There were times that he would smuggle in 10 inch long steel nails that he would divide amongst Pannon and they would drive into the oldest and largest trees that they could find.

And this is a classic anti-logging tactic because the nails, as soon as you hit them with a chainsaw, would break the chainsaws. But sometimes it would injure the people wielding the chainsaws. it was like it came with risks, but he was doing that all over the place. While he was doing what he could in Borneo, his options were pretty limited due to the whole the government wanted him dead thing. Oh yeah, that thing, that little, that little like snafu. So he continued on when he was outside of the island of Borneo.

He did other things, including staging a 60-day hunger strike in front of the Swiss parliament. He created an NGO called the Bruno Manzer Fund. He traveled to the Congo to investigate Belgian logging operations within the Congo and then went to Mexico to do the same. But he ended up having to leave Mexico when his friend got shot by some criminals wielding machine guns. It was becoming really dangerous. So he's moved his efforts. I mean, that's terrifying, but he's now moved his efforts from just Borneo, but he's traveling to other places that are facing logging issues. Yep.

Now it has been almost 10 years. since he first began his fight for the jungles of Borneo and the Panon people. At surface level, he had succeeded in becoming one of the most renowned environmental activists in history, but all of his efforts, his publicity stunts, years spent in the jungle on the front lines, and thousands upon thousands of hours of working behind desks, he had not saved a single acre of forest. And he was becoming increasingly depressed about this and even pessimistic towards humanity as a whole, and he had this overwhelming loss of hope.

And this was a complete change from his normal, upbeat, overwhelmingly positive sunshine attitude. But the years were- That's so disheartening to put that much effort into it and to see nothing. And not even an acre? Right. Like all of this and absolutely nothing. Nothing.

And you could say he was successful by other measures. You know, the Pannon people banding together. he definitely got this global media attention on this issue that otherwise would have probably been swept under the rug completely. So he has had success in other ways, but as far as what mattered to him and his initial want and desire out of this entire thing, he had not yet succeeded. In November of 1999, according to those closest to him, Bruno began acting very differently. For example, he sent a postcard to Georges saying that he would soon be

leaving for Borneo for an uncertain amount of time and inquired if he'd like to get together. Basically said, hey, I'm about to leave for Borneo. Do you want to chill before we go? And this doesn't seem weird, like to us, like, you know, but for Bruno, this was extremely out of character. Out of all the years that he had known Bruno, Georges said that he would travel internationally all the time and would never speak a word regarding his travel plans to anyone unless it was specifically involving work or a particular event. So, So he would just disappear and go abroad and sneak in out of the jungle for months or whatever and not tell anyone. And now all of a sudden he's telling people his plans.

Take some things up. And it wasn't just to Georges. He seemed to write to everyone close to him with an eerily similar undertone. Basically, he was leaving and he wasn't sure when he would be back. While this raised eyebrows, cause for concern really came when he arrived at the Bruno Manzer Fund office and started tying up loose ends in a way that he had never, ever done before. In March of 2000, Bruno was once again in Borneo. He had met up with an old friend named Edmund, and they traveled together for a month. Edmund noticed that Bruno was off, just like other people noticed.

He wasn't as sharp as usual, and he made a few different missteps during their travels, including falling asleep on a particularly dangerous section of water during a rafting trip, which was very out of character for him. And another thing that seemed odd was he was posing for photos, staring into the camera and giving thumbs-up gestures. He sent these photos to friends and family along with different postcards, which was the final alarm for them because he had never sent photos of himself ever out of all the years that he was there. He would send photos of different wildlife or pretty trees and things, or even the Pannon people, but never, ever of himself until now. So what's going on with him? Well, Jor said of

the pictures, quote, those pictures of him with his thumbs up, he never ever showed signs like. that. It's theater. It's not him. He's communicating that everything is all right when everything is not. Nothing was okay. They say Bruno is leaving and that he's leaving us and saying goodbye. Bruno sent a postcard on May 23, 2000 from a small town named Barrio in Northern Sarwalk to his girlfriend, Charlotte. From there, he and a few of his Pannon friends went onwards towards Batulawi, which is a 6,700 foot peak nearby, that he said, he wanted to climb, which was not out of character for him. But when the peaks started coming into sight through the jungle canopy, he explained to his friends that he wanted to go alone,

but would return soon. But the thing is, he didn't, and Bruno Manzer was never seen again. Wait, he just said he was going to leave. He'll be right back and then never came. He said he wanted to climb the peaks alone. Yeah. And that he would return and he never came back. Did people search for him? Mm-hmm. So it was normal for Bruno to be gone for long periods of time. like we discussed before, with little to no communication to the outside world once he went into the jungle. But it wasn't until six months after Charlotte received that postcard that people realized something was very wrong. Over the next several years, there were seven different searches that were conducted in search for Bruno. Friends and families spent months of their own time in the jungle scouring the forest for

any sign of him. The Pannon tried to track him, and they're the elite of the elite. They know everything about that jungle. Helicopters scanned nearby peaks and openings within the thick vegetation, but nothing was ever found, not a single trace of him. No body, no clothing, no pack, nothing. That's so eerie. Do you think he escaped? Could he have like escape to start a new life? I feel like that would not be him. After everything that I've read about him, I just don't think that would be the move he would make. It sounds calculated like he knew that he was going to be. going to be leaving soon for good. Yes. Yes. And there are several theories about what came of him. Some think that he made his way far enough into the jungle that he found a patch of this untouched

Eden and just lived out the rest of his days peacefully there. That's a really nice, like, G version. It is a very nice thought. It's kind of like a best case scenario. Let's just all pretend that happened, even though it probably didn't. But it's nice. It doesn't seem likely. It's like a nice bow. like to tie this all in. Others think that he was murdered by loggers or captured and assassinated by the Malaysian government. Wow. Maybe he had an unfortunate accident.

Maybe he had fallen. He had obviously had a history of free climbing, free soloing, maybe he got bit by another snake, and then the jungle just concealed his remains from some sort of accident. However, the people closest to him think that he entered the jungle with the intention of making it his final journey and ended his own life in some way. That was going to be my next question. If he had any mental health issues that he was struggling with, because everything that you're saying, it just sounds planned.

He's sending photos. He's doing weird things. He's taking his time to say goodbye to people. It just feels like there's something planned there. Did his family say if he seemed to be struggling mentally? Well, they didn't say he was having mental health issues. They just were saying, that he was just not himself. He seemed really hopeless, like he had failed in his lifelong mission.

Because he hadn't been successful in all the advocacy he had been doing. Like you said, he hadn't saved a single acre. So they think that. Yeah, in his minds, maybe he thought he had been failing. And it's kind of at this point that he's, he's kind of between these two worlds. He doesn't feel at home in Europe. And he obviously, he's wanted in Borneo. And I don't know, he's, He's just like, he just doesn't really fit anywhere anymore type of thing. And like he can't go forward, but he can't go back either. And he's just in this weird limbo. So I don't know.

Obviously, we have no idea what happened to him. No one does for sure. Bruno had made the decision to leave his way of life for a rapidly disappearing one. He fought for and dedicated his days to preserving what was already being exterminated. His friends believe that he had become stuck, unable to return to life in Europe, but had nowhere to go in the disappearing jungle. The forests that he had roamed were being slashed, and the Pannon, the people who had welcomed him

into their traditional nomadic lives, had over the years become settled, a result from a combination of pushes from the government, and the fact that they were simply running out of places to go in the jungle. The people in places Bruno believed so wholeheartedly in were almost gone. Roger, one of Bruno's closest friends, said this. The end was sad, yes. but only the end.

The whole thing wasn't. How can you say that life is sad just because one piece of it ends? If you lose your beliefs, it's a really sad moment. I had the feeling that at the end, Bruno had no more beliefs. The art of life is to grow old, but not to lose your beliefs as you do. Or if you do lose them, to find new ways to be glad to be alive. But Bruno lost all his beliefs and he crashed. He couldn't evolve and that is the tragedy.

Speaking of tragedies, time for some quick. statistics. I know this episode has been overall really depressing, I think. But it's really important that we put some tangible figures out just to highlight how serious of an issue deforestation in Borneo truly is. According to the scientific consultant firm Borneo futures, in terms of plant and animal species, the rainforest of Borneo are the richest terrestrial ecosystem in the entire world. But despite this, logging, land clearing, and deforestation persists. In the 1980s and 1990s, the time where Bruno was in Borneo, the forests of Borneo were leveled at a rate unprecedented in human history.

Burned, logged, and cleared, and commonly replaced with agriculture. During this time, more roundwood was harvested from Borneo than from Africa and the Amazon combined. And this is just, I mean, I know it's a big island, but it's an island. It's a smaller space than. Some of these other areas that are being logged. That's scary. And this is still going on today. Yeah, so we'll get into that a little bit.

Between 1973 and 2010, a total acre of 168,493 square kilometers of rainforest in Borneo had been converted to other types of land use. And of course, because I don't know what that means as far as how big that is, it is four times the size of Switzerland. Holy shit. In 1973, Borneo was covered with. with 75.7% forest. In 2010, that percentage was down to 52.8.

And during the same period, a total of 21,820 kilometers of logging roads were created in Borneo. And again, let's put that into something we can fathom. That is 21 times the Earth's circumference. Why do they need all those roads? To get to all the different parts of the jungle. Logging areas. Mm-hmm. And different logging areas.

And all of the Pannon people and the indigenous peoples that are there, they're still living there. Or trying to live there. Their homes are being destroyed. Half of the annual global tropical timber procurement is from Borneo. But what really is in the news recently, because that's a lot of like 80s, 90s, early 2000s. But recently, when it comes to forest loss in Borneo, if you're to Google it, like one of the top hits is going to be all about palm oil plantations. And while the deforestation continued through the 2000s, it has slowed down a bit, but there was a big surge in this palm oil plantation expansion.

In the last century, the world's third largest island, Borneo, has lost a significant portion of its forests to fire, logging, and the expansion of these plantations, and only half of its forest cover remains today, down from 75% in the mid-1980s. So we've lost 25% more since Bruno was there. Yes. And oil palm plantations are the main driver of deforestation in Borneo today. Indonesia is the world's largest producer of the oil. And it's not an easy fix.

It's not like, okay, well, let's not use palm oil then. It's in everything. Everything. It's in everything from bread to chocolate chips to your shampoo. Like, it's in everything. Malaysia is the world's second largest. producer of the oil as well, because Indonesia, like I said, as a whole is the world's largest, but Malaysia is the second largest producer. And together, these two Asian countries produce

87% of the global supply, and they both share the island. Because remember I said, there are multiple countries that make up the island of Borneo. And the impact of the deforestation is clearly far-reaching. It affects everything from the land, the waterways, people, and the animals of Borneo. And the loss of the jungle to plantation expansion or logging activities not only means a loss of trees, but of course those who live in them. Borneo, like we've mentioned many times throughout this episode and the previous one is one of the most biodiverse areas in the world. And to describe just how many species are living there and are being impacted would be a mammoth task. But there's one that we should spotlight because it's what I think a lot of people.

think about when they think of species in Borneo. It's kind of like the polar bear to the Arctic. Obviously, they're not the only species up there, but everyone thinks of the polar bear in the Arctic. And orangutans are kind of like that to Borneo. Between 2002 and 2018, 100,000 orangutans were lost, and that is 50% of their entire global population. And that is primarily due to deforestation, habitat loss, hunting, and the illegal pet trade. So we have half the amount of, orangutans. And sorry, what year did you say that that? What's that? 50% drop happened between 2002 and 2018. Okay. So this is an old statistic too. Because this is, so we're in 23 now. So it's five years old. Yep. So it might, it, I'm assuming it's probably even worse than that now. And there's also the Bornean

elephants, which is the smallest Asian elephant subspecies. They're also known as Borneo pygmy elephants because of their size, their small size. And by small, I mean eight to ten feet tall, generally. The small ones. Right. The smaller ones. Their population is hanging around 1,500 individuals today. And of course, habitat loss due to unsustainable agriculture and logging remains the top threat to their existence in the wild. As I mentioned in part one of this episode in like the very first couple sentences of the first episode, Sarwalk has 30 national parks, and there are several more scattered throughout the island, along with other designated protected areas, but these places aren't the only holdout for hope. Throughout the island, various efforts by local groups, organizations, and even individuals

have focused on restoring Borneo's rainforests by replanting and rewilding areas of degraded jungle. New studies from the Center for International Forestry Research also has some good news. They found that the expansion of palm oil plantations in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo has actually slowed down since 2012. By 2017, the downward trend in plantation expansion, as well as the clearing of forests for the plantations, reached a level that was the lowest since 2003. So it's still a problem, but it's not rampant like it once was.

It has a trend of actually slowing. And while this is something to celebrate, ensuring a sustainable future for Borneo's forests remains critical. If demand for palm oil and timber remain or their prices go up, effective government regulations and industry standards are going to be critical to ensure that we don't regress to what we have done in the past and the rate in which it was done during Bruno's time on the island.

And to finish up, I wanted to kind of just discuss something that we obviously spoke a lot about during the episode, but not really in this. way and that's what has happened to the Pannon people. So back in 1992, when Bruno was doing his thing, he received a strongly worded letter from the Malaysian prime minister. And I kind of wanted to read an excerpt of it because it brings kind of a different side of the story into the mix, a different angle to consider. And his words are like, his stance is obviously very clear and strong and he probably has ulterior motives to what he's saying. But he does kind of have some point. So let's see. He says, as a Swiss living in the lap of luxury with the world's highest

standard of living, it is of the highest arrogance for you to advocate that the Pannan live on maggots and monkeys in their miserable huts subjected to all kinds of diseases. Have they no right to a better way of life? What right do you have to condemn them to a primitive life forever? The Pannons may tell you that their primitive way of life is what they like. That is because they are not given a chance to live any differently or to live a better life. You are trying to deny them their chance for a better life so that you can enjoy studying primitive peoples in the way that you study animals. Panan are people and they should be respected as people. If you had the chance to be educated and live a better life, they too deserve that chance. Okay, but he kind of started it out with,

they might say that they don't want it, but they do. It's like they're actively saying no. And you're being like, well, I know what's best for you. So I'm going to do it anyway, which also, like, I can kind of see where he's like, they don't have the health care that we have, the modern society, the other places have, but they don't want it. Like, they could easily walk into town if they really wanted to. They could easily go to these civilizations if they wanted to. And it's important to note they're not completely uncontacted. Like, I think a lot of people have this image of different indigenous bands or tribes or cultures deep within either the Amazon or the rainforest or whatever as this completely isolated bubble and they're not.

Like they have been trading with other types of groups and been in communication with different types of groups, including different Western societies for centuries. Like some of these people had like, just do it. T-shirts. You know what I mean? Like it's not like they had no white. Like even when they saw Bruno, remember, they weren't like, who have never seen a white man before? Yeah. Right. So that's also important to know. It's not like they've never had no idea anything else was going on and they were just never given a chance. So there is a lot wrong, obviously, with like there's flaws to what he had just written. And obviously, and it's an extreme stance. But it's also, you can understand kind of like the angle he's trying to work. I can understand like, I can see what he's trying to do, but it just doesn't make any sense to me because these people, he's like, they're saying they don't want it, but they're.

don't know. They don't know what this better world is, so we're going to give it to them anyway. Like, that doesn't make any sense. Here's the other whole ass problem with that is at face value, hell yeah, offering people a better chance at life if, in fact, that is what they want, is undeniably the right decision, like the right offer to make. Like, I want to give you the best options and you can choose. But as we have learned through our own country's track record with false promises given to indigenous peoples. Promises are not always kept. And that kind of comes around in this case. So he's saying like, oh, but like look at all this, this amazing future in life you have ahead of you if you just leave the forest and settle somewhere. Like, you're going to

have a different life. But what he's offering is also a matter of perspective. What he thinks is good versus what someone else thinks is good. It's like this is kind of like a totally extreme example and not super related in this aspect, but it would be like, for me, I like living in a quiet town. And if someone was like, no, New York City is way better for you, you would be way happier. There's way more jobs. There's more restaurants. There's more things you can do. So I'm going to force you to live in New York City. And you have to live like a New York City person because that is the better life. It's like for someone else, that probably is true. But like, it's all a matter of perspective. So to force your beliefs of what a better world is on these people doesn't make it it just it doesn't make any sense to me it's like that argument

is so one-sided a thousand percent drives me crazy i'm like this is wild you can't a strongly worded letter of i know it's best for these people and they need it's like no you don't i think what the point was for that was to try and get under bruno's skin and make him question what he was doing Like you're you're not giving them access to health care or jobs or the ability to travel the world because you just want to study them. And he wasn't, but I feel like he wasn't even just studying them. He had become them. They were his friends. They were his family.

This was the way that he wanted to live his life. He wasn't. Of course, he went in studying them. He learned the language. And I'm sure that was definitely parts of it. But it became way more than that. I agree. And the other reason I wanted to bring this up is to just show the clear, like, fault, empty promise of that.

It's like, it's another tactic. It's another, like, deception. Because in, so this is now in the 1990s. And at the urging of the government and the Methodist Church, which they were another reason that a lot of Pannon became settled, there were a couple different groups of Pannan that had settled into a place called Long Adang, which is a small cluster of, it's like a small community. And it was just a small cluster of simple frame homes that were on stilts that had like corrugated roofs. Like this, these weren't like, wasn't like a neighborhood cold-de-sac.

You know, they were shacks. And in this area of the jungle that they were in, logging companies had hauled out $20 billion worth of timber. Yet this village had no roads leading in or out from it, no school, no health clinic, no public transportation. Not all of the homes had electricity. And there was a single community water faucet that drew water from the river. So they're leaving them in poverty while they make billions of dollars. And this is the people that they urge to settle. It's like, look at this better life we're going to offer you when you're settled. It's like an Indian reservation here in the states, essentially.

Like, reservations in the United States are the poorest areas in our country. And it's because the government shafted them, literally. And it's just like this is, this is happening in born as well. And under the same, it's the same framework. And at the heart of the issue, no matter how you view the situation, as far as Bruno and what the prime minister said in his letter and whatever, maybe other people had those thoughts too. I really believe that Bruno was truly just trying to advocate for the Pannon in a way that gave them a voice and the power to choose for themselves what they wanted. He wasn't forcing anyone to stay with their traditional way of life. He just didn't want them to be manipulated or deceived into a decision and he wanted to advocate for them.

Many Panan admired Bruno in life and even today as he is presumed dead. Manite O'Long, the son of Olong Saga, one of Bruno's close Panon friends, said of him, Bruno was like my brother. When we see the animals, when we see the river, we remember Bruno. Today, the jungles of Borneo and all who live in them, the Panon, the dyke, clouded leopards, your proboscis monkeys, sun bears, are. orangutans and more are threatened. And all of their futures hang in the balance. While no one needs to go out and be a Bruno Mancer, I think we can all think of him from time to time when we need a little

reminding that sometimes the work of a few could be the inspiration to many. And that is all I have on Bruno Mancer and his story in Borneo. And abroad. Well, I think you've all, I think that you have done a really good job of putting Borneo for on the map for all of us and we're adding it to the list of places that we want to go. Thank God because I just love and I mean if you Google Borneo you're going to see like just how beautiful it is but you're also going to see like it's all devastation photos too like just because deforestation is such a huge problem there but there are also you know a lot of like I said protected areas that are popping up efforts that are actively going on and strong trying to rewild places that have been totally just obliterated. There's orangutan sanctuaries,

sunbear sanctuaries, like for orphaned and injured wildlife. And just because of all of the logging and different agricultural uses of the land that destroy their homes and things. So it's pretty sad. It's pretty sad. But there is always place for hope. There's always people popping up like Bruno that are trying to do the right thing amongst all of this. The fight's not over. The fight is not over. And yeah, Borneo is now one with the jungle and no matter how he, how he went. He said Borneo. I think you meant Bruno. What did I say? You said Borneo is now one with the jungle. Oh yeah, Bruno. Okay. I'm just going to say like Bruno and Borneo are just like stamped in my mind right now so hard. Like I'm going to be thinking about them for a while. But he's cool as shit and you should look him up. I'll obviously post pictures of him and stuff. And there's not like a ton of photo. out there of him just because he spent so much time in the jungles and didn't take photos of himself.

But he had obviously a lot of publicity stunts and a lot of articles written about him. So his story's all over the place. If you're interested in learning more, definitely that book I was recommending by Carl Hoffman, The Last Wild Men of Borneo and the movie Paradise War. Amazing. You should look into them. But otherwise, that's it. And I hope you guys enjoyed it and fell in love with Borneo.

Borneo. A little bit more. I almost said Bruno. Bruno too. Well, thank you. It's a really cool episode. And we'll see you all next time. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

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