He spent many years in Kalimantan (the Indonesian portion of Borneo) researching history, languages and cultures.

[2] After his first trip to Borneo in 1973–75, Sellato spent many years traveling, mostly by canoe and on foot, and researching linguistics and anthropology among former forest nomads and slash-and-burn farmers in the Müller Mountain Range and other parts of Kalimantan.

[3] In 1988, Sellato was commissioned by the petroleum company Elf Aquitaine to write a coffee-table art book on Borneo, which took a year of research and writing – the resulting work, the bilingual illustrated Hornbill and Dragon was published in 1989,[4] with a second edition published in 1992.

His latest edited book, “Plaited Arts from the Borneo Rainforest”, commissioned by Total E&P Indonésie, was published in 2012.

[6] Sellato is a well-respected expert in his field – according to Simon Strickland's review of Innermost Borneo: Studies in Dayak Cultures (2002) in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Sellato's studies have contributed significantly to knowledge of the nomadic tribes of Borneo, despite the ethnographic and historical complexities of the field.