This tiny Sarawak jetty costs RM50k, but maybe because it’s made of this rare wood…

When someone tells you there’s a jetty in Sarawak that cost RM50K to build, you might be imagining something that looks like this:

…and not this:

This biasa-looking jetty in Miri blew up on social media recently after its photos – along with its cost – were posted by Corporate Communication JKR Sarawak on their Facebook page. Given the appearance of the jetty, Malaysian netizens unsurprisingly had a lot to say in the comments section, with our favorite comment being:

JKR Sarawak followed up with a press statement justifying their masterpiece, saying that:

• The belian timber used in the project was below the current market rate
• Security measures were a concern due to a crocodile infestation
• Had the jetty been made out of steel, it would’ve been even more expensive.

And having done some cursory research (see: Google), there’s reason to believe that despite its price tag, building a jetty out of belian wood is probably not the worst idea in the world, because…

Belian wood doesn’t rot easily and can last decades

Bet y’all didn’t know this, but the belian tree (fancy scientific name: Eusideroxylon zwageri) is actually Sarawak’s official tree, and it can be found in East Malaysia, parts of Indonesia, and the Philippines. The hardwood from the belian tree is described by the Forest Research Institute Malaysia as exceedingly hard, does not rot easily, is resistant to the elements, and apparently, termites don’t have it on their menus.

In fact, the wood is so durable that, according to a research paper published in 2005, untreated belian posts (or tiangs) are expected to last about 50 years in ground contact, making it a prized material for house structures, ship hulls and weirdly, Chinese coffins. All those attributes are most likely why belian is have been used in parts of the old Sarawak Museum, the Khatulistiwa restaurant in Kuching, and Dayak longhouses, with the Rumah Nyuka being constructed entirely out of the wood.

We’ve really hyped belian up to this point, but unfortunately, belian isn’t some indestructible, Vibranium-esque material we’re making it out to be, since…

Certain types of bacteria and fungi can (kind of) weaken the wood

Even though belian contains a good amount of antimicrobial compounds, namely eusiderin and lignin, which makes it highly resistant to red and brown rot (types of rot in wood), it’s not completely immune to bacterial decay. The same 2005 research paper we mentioned earlier reported two types of microbes that can weaken the Borneo ironwood – tunneling bacteria and tunneling fungi.

These bacteria and fungi have the ability to penetrate into the wood, degrading its cell walls which then allows rot to set in. Although the study doesn’t say where in Malaysia exactly this happened, another gaggle of researchers managed to pin these bacteria as the culprits behind the breaking down of the wooden components of a cooling tower.

The good news is that in most cases, decay caused by these tunneling microbes only affect the surface level of the belian, and said decay happens very slowly, so fans of the new belian jetty proooobably don’t have anything to worry about. The bad news is…

It’s really expensive, and one step above endangered

We’re not entirely sure why belian wood is so expensive, but from what we’ve read, there’s a few factors that seem to be in play in its jacked up price: it grows very slowly (it takes 120 years to reach 30cm in diameter), there’s a high demand cuz of its features, and it’s listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. Take those and add to the fact that hardwoods are harder to work with than softwoods kinda explains why belian is so expensive.

There’s a Sarawak-based timber shop we found online, and while they do sell belian wood, their prices go by weightage, so it’s a little hard to do a direct comparison with the mythical RM50K jetty. Whatever the case may be, hopefully it will be a couple of decades before the residents of Kampung Mutap need a new jetty to replace this one, and hey, at least JKR Sarawak used local wood to build it, right? #sapotlokal