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Dipterocarp Forests
Lowland Dipterocarp forests are the most biodiverse and most threatened forests in Borneo (68% of lowlands have been cleared in Kalimantan, 56% in Malaysia). These giant trees, often exceeding 45 meters in height, are the most valuable source of timber in Borneo and have been heavily logged over the past three decades. Langner and Siegert (2005) estimated that just under 30 million hectares of lowland Dipterocarp forest remained in Borneo in 2002.

The prevalence of Dipterocarps gives Borneo's forests an unusual dynamic that is tightly linked with the ocean-atmosphere phenomenon called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (also known as ENSO or "El Niño"). According to Lisa Curran, a biologist who has spent more than 20 years in Borneo and is now a leading expert on the natural history of the island, Dipterocarp reproduction is inextricably tied to the arrival of El Niño, with 80-93% of species synchronizing their flowering to the onset of the dry weather conditions, which traditionally occur on a roughly 4 year basis. During a "Dipterocarp year" in Kalimantan, the canopy bursts into color as countless emergent Dipterocarp trees — each of which may have 4 million flowers — bloom during a six-week period, a strategy that intermittently starves and swamps seed predators so that at least some seeds survive to germination.