Excerpts from Wikipedia:
Bario is a community of 13 to 16
villages located on the Kelabit Highlands in Miri Division, Sarawak, Malaysia, lying at an altitude of
1000 m (3280 ft) above sea level. It is located close to the
Sarawak-Kalimantan border, 178 km to the east of Miri.[5] It is the main settlement for
the indigenous Kelabit tribe.
The name "Bario" comes from Kelabit language and
means "wind". It is also known as the "land of a hundred
handshakes" as to depict the hospitality of the local people.[4] W.M. Toynbee, a Canadian
schoolteacher, also the group headmaster of seven primary schools at Kelabit
Highlands from 1963 to 1965,[7] referred to Bario as
"Shangri-La" (paradise).
The rocks of the Kelabit Highlands are comprised of mudstone, sandstone, and limestone, ranging in age from the Oligocene to Miocene periods. In terms of plate tectonics, the region was a basin formed by
warping at a subduction zone where the continental
crust was
forced upwards. The estimated rate of uplift is 20 mm per century for the last
two million years.[18] In the Late Pleistocene period, Bario showed a lowering in temperatures during
the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
The Bario community is located on the Kelabit
Highlands, consisting of 13[4] to 16 villages with a small number
of roads linking them, covering an area of 3,850 km2.[3] It is bordered by the Tamabu Mountain
Range of mountains in the west and Apo Duat mountains in the east. Pulong Tau National Park was gazetted in 2005,[16] covering 164,500 hectares of
tropical rainforests. Mount Murud, Bukit Batu Lawi, Bukit Batu Buli, and Bukit Batu Iran are located
inside the national park. Mount Murud is the highest peak in Sarawak. Average
daily temperatures in Bario range from 14-26 °C with average annual rainfall of
2000 mm.
The Bario area also forms the headwaters of the Limbang,
Kuba-an, Libun, and Dapur Rivers; the latter two are the important tributaries
for the Tutoh and Ulu Baram Rivers. A survey done in 1995 found that the pH of
river waters around Bario was acidic, ranging between 4.8 to 5.2. This can be
explained by the leaching of acidic organic materials from the soil into the
water. Streams draining the Bario Asal
area are of good quality with high levels
of dissolved oxygen and a low amount of suspended solids. Chemical pollution
was insignificant due to low or absent usage of chemical fertilizers.
However, to the east of Bario Asal, water was of poor quality
due to deforestation and agricultural activities.
According to 2003 statistics from the Bario Rural Clinic, the
Bario community had 305 households with a population of 1,487 people.[3] Meanwhile, the Bario Town
(also known as "Bario Asal") consists of 29 households and 192
people.[21] Most of them are elderly or
young parents with their children still in school. There are very few young
people here due to limited economic activities in the community. In 2006, 55%
of the population were farmers, 21% were pensioners and the remaining 7% were
government servants. Most farmers were earning less than RM 500, which was
below the poverty line in Sarawak.[3] Due to the shortage of labour,
foreign labourers from neighbouring Kalimantan, Indonesia are employed for
agricultural production here.[18]
The main language spoken in Bario is the Kelabit language. However, the Malay language is also widely spoken here. A
few people speak English well, especially the city returnees.
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