Borneo adventure: 'I SWAPPED MOTUEKA FOR THE JUNGLE'

After joining a remote tribe, Jacky is doing the people a bag of good!

- Kasia Jillings

Watching a critically ill young woman from the Borneo jungle receive treatment in a makeshift medical shed, Jacky McLaren promised herself she’d find a way to help the embattled Penan tribe.

The Motueka mother-of-two, then 49, was teaching in Brunei and discovered the tribe’s plight while hiking in the neighbouring Malaysian state of Sarawak during her time off.

“I went to a shed that had been set up for people from the rainforest to stay in while awaiting medical treatment,” recalls Jacky, now 67. “A young woman had left her children in the jungle with her parents to come with her husband. She’d had tuberculosis, most of her lung had been cut away, she was paralysed from the waist down and had a huge wound on her back.

“This is not uncommon – this tribe is at the bottom of the pecking order, and lack of antibiotics and follow-up support treatment often results in treatable diseases turning fatal. We raised the money to get her to Kuching Hospital, but she died there. That experience spurred me on.”

During these treks, Jacky fell in love with the peace-loving Penan people, who were still largely living traditionally, relying on the jungle for food, medicine and shelter.

She witnessed how palm oil deforestation was destroying their homeland and livelihood, with the tribe also desperately struggling to access adequate healthcare and education.