Kenyah Badeng ethnoclimatology and the transmission of weather information in East Malaysia

In Borneo, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events have been increasing in frequency and intensity since the 1970s. While historical records describe past responses to ENSO related consequences, such as droughts, crop failures, fires, floods, mast fruiting, animal explosions and disease epidemics, little is known of ethnoclimatological knowledge and responses to seasonal climatic variability. By extending ethnobiological and ethnographic methods to the study of climate variation, this investigation aims to deepen our understanding of ethnoclimatological knowledge systems and their role in responses to climatic variability. In order to achieve this goal, we have compiled extant knowledge of weather forecasting systems and past and present responses to ENSO related events among the Kenyah Badeng rice farmers of the interior of Sarawak, Malaysia, and analyzed the conditions that affect their vulnerability in the socio-economic context of the Malaysian state and its discourses of education, development and technological modernity.