I’ve done translating part of the report on the rape of Penan girls and women in the interior of Sarawak but now having a second thought about posting it online.

As part of its “expansion” process, Borneo Blog will now bring to you rainforest news around the world.

World rainforest distribution

As you can see from the map below, Borneo forms a significant part of the world’s total distribution of tropical rainforest, which supplies 28 per cent of world’s oxygen and regarded as the planet’s largest pharmacy. All rainforest news, from the Amazon to the Southern Yucatan Peninsula, Papua New Guinea to Sub-Saharan Africa, will be filed under the “Rainforest News” category.

Borneo Blog Portal

I’ve also started a new project under the Borneo Blog called the Borneo Blog Portal, which aggregates blogs run by Borneo bloggers — Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and Kalimantan bloggers.

The “Borneo Blog Portal” is now live online as a Borneo Blog sub-domain to at http://portal.borneo-blog.com. If it takes off successfully, it may get its own domain name in the future.

How to join Borneo Blog Portal

Here’s how, email me at jaxonsblog [at] gmail.com or use the contact form here to submit your blog’s address. I will then review the submissions and if everything is in order, your blog or blogs can be accepted into the portal within 24 hours.

Your blog or blogs must have a valid syndication feed to be featured in the portal.

Here’s the deal

Once your blog is accepted, your blog entries, starting with the latest, will start appearing on the portal in the form of excerpts. Clicking on the excerpts will bring visitors to your site. The excerpts will remain in the portal for about three months.

In exchange of this, I ask a small favour that you put a link to Borneo Blog Portal — a text link will do — in your blog.

One last thing, your blog must be in English or mostly in English. The portal is now aggregating three blogs, including Borneo Blog. All suggestions are welcome.

Borneo Blog is celebrating its first anniversary next month. I guess, it’s time for a revamp and to add in one important feature that has been missing on this blog all the while — a blogroll.

I think I’m going to divide the blogroll into four categories, namely Sabah bloggers, Sarawak bloggers, Brunei bloggers and Kalimantan bloggers to make it a true Borneo blogroll.

Anyone heard of the word “extractive”? According to Google definition, extractive is:

1. Something that may be extracted; The substance left behind after something has been extracted; That serves to extract something; Able to be extracted;

2. Parcels that are primarily used for surface mining and extraction of materials such as gravel, stone, minerals, ore, soil, or peat.

If that is the case, what then is the meaning of “extractive experience”?

Nothing. It means nothing.

I didn’t know that I had used the meaningless phrase in this post, until someone emailed me and pointed out the error. I really meant to write “extensive experience” and didn’t know how my fingers ended up keying in the wrong word.

I didn’t even know whether the word existed. Until today, that is.

Whoever you are, thanks for pointing out the error. I’ve spotted several others on this blog but not as fatal as extractive experience.

I do hope, however, that I didn’t cause anyone to lose a job with the Heart of Borneo for having stated that candidates with an extractive experience would stand a better chance at landing the job.

But I’m quite happy that as of today, this blog is on #1 on Google and Yahoo for the keyword “Borneo Blog”.

Maybe it’s going to drop tomorrow, who knows, but it doesn’t really matter so long as Borneo Blog stays on page one of both search engines for the keyword.

Being in the #1 is probably nothing though. I don’t really know what to make of this.

Just some blogkeeping announcement. I’ve removed the Borneo Polls Series widget, titled “Which of place below is your favourite destination in Sabah?”, from the main page of this blog and republished it as a page.

The reason for that is that the widget had somehow slowed down this blog’s loading time.

This may not be a problem for those with broadband connection but some of my friends who still use the 56kbps dail-up, told me that the widget was slowing down the loading time.

I guess, this blog should load faster now.

The poll can now be accessed via the header navigation. You can still vote by accessing the Poll section of this blog.

As of today, Danum Valley still leads the list of Borneo Blog readers’ favourite destination.

Another thing

I’ve also created a Forum section on this blog and still trying to figure out how to implement it effectively.

I plan to give everyone a full access to the forum so that everybody will have the chance to participate without having to go through the prior registration process.

I will be posting topics on that forum from time to time. You can also suggest topics for discussion.

I’ve been working quite hard to get where this blog is now on Google. And it’s finally here on the main page for the keyword “Borneo Blog”.

It used to be tucked away somewhere in the 6th or 7th page. Having reached this spot I should now work even harder to remain on the main page.

Okay, this may be an out of Borneo thing, but I can’t resist posting it here. Former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad blogs! He can be found at www.chedet.com.

Che Det is his pen name when he wrote his columns back in the 60′s.

About Borneo

Borneo, at the size of 748,168 sq km, is the third largest island in the world. But if you count Australia (at 7,618,493 sq km) as an island, then you will have to demote Borneo into the fourth spot.

[Map by Google Earth]

If you take Australia out of the equation, then the world largest island will be Greenland, at 2,175,600 sq km, followed by New Guinea at 785,753 sq km.

Located right at the centre of Southeast Asia, the island comprised two Malaysian state (Sabah and Sarawak), an Indonesian territory (Kalimantan) and a country (Brunei).

Here is a list of the 10 of the world’s largest islands:

#01: Greenland – (840,004 sq miles) (2,175,600 sq km)
#02: New Guinea – (303,381 sq miles) (785,753 sq km)
#03: Borneo – (288,869 sq miles) (748,168 sq km)
#04: Madagascar – (226,917 sq miles) (587,713 sq km)
#05: Baffin – (194,574 sq miles) (503,944 sq km)
#06: Sumatra – (171,069 sq miles) (443,066 sq km)
#07: Honshu – (88,982 sq miles) (225,800 sq km)
#08: Great Britain – (88,787 sq miles) (229,957 sq km)
#09: Victoria – (85,154 sq miles) (220,548 sq km)
#10: Ellesmere – (71,029 sq miles) (183,965 sq km)

NOTE: Australia is widely considered as a continental landmass, not an island. In reality, it certainly is the largest island, with a size of (2,941,517 sq miles) (7,618,493 sq km). [Source: Worldatlas.com]

About the blogger

You can call me Jaxon S. I was born in Sabah, the Malaysian state on Borneo island. I spent most of my lifetime growing and living in Borneo, until in 2005 when I had to uproot from Borneo island because of work commitment.

I worked in Singapore for about 30 months until November 2007. I’m now working in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur.

Sabah, my home state, has three main ethnic groups — the Kadazandusun, Bajau and Chinese. Under the Kadazandusun group, there are over 30 more sub-ethnic groups. I am from one of the these sub-tribes, called the Kimaragang, or the name given to the descendant of a man called the Red Man.

About this blog

This blog is dedicated to Borneo, the place I where I grow up, and the place I want to return to when the time is right.