Representatives from more than 30 Penan communities in Sarawak called for the state government to fulfill promises made to improve the quality of life of their people and to stop destructive logging in their forest.
According to environmental non-government agency Friends of the Earth (SAM), the Penan groups endorsed the Long Sayan Declaration 2002 during a three-day meeting held earlier this month in Long Sayan, Miri.
Among others, the declaration called upon the Sarawak government to undertake a systematic process to gazette for each Penan community a communal forest of its own as provided for in the Sarawak Forests Ordinance.
The Penan also want adequate compensation for destruction to their forest lands already caused by destructive logging.
In addition, they demand for state authorities to deliver their promises to improve their quality of life by providing assistance in health care, education, housing and agricultural skills.
"[The Penan's] demands show that the communities' wish for their forest to be protected is totally consistent with their desire for their living conditions to be improved as a whole," said the statement.
Survival threatened
According to SAM, the declaration was intended to clearly spell out the suffering that the dispossessed Penan communities have been facing, including food shortages, frequent illnesses and income loss brought about by logging operations that encroach into their forest areas.
"The people maintain that their survival is severely threatened by the logging industry, which continues to reap huge profits from the sale of timber resources extracted from their ancestral lands with ease and impunity," the NGO said.
In order to put an end to their predicament and poverty, the Penan, in the Long Sayan Declaration, said the state government must first alter its decision-making process which has so far excluded recognition of the natives' customary rights to their ancestral lands.
Meanwhile, SAM also revealed that in two separate 'Report Card' sessions one to evaluate the Sarawak government effort to improve Penan welfare and the other to gauge their quality of life nine Penan groups voted for an average F (very poor) for both.
"The result of the Report Card session speaks volumes on the suffering that the people have had to endure for more than two decades as a result of the encroachment of logging activities onto their land.
"Now that people have clearly quantified the level of their distress and disappointment, further apathy to their plight will certainly be a great act of injustice," SAM said.
Written undertaking
The NGO stated that to rectify the situation, the Sarawak government must democratise access to the state's natural wealth and give indigenous communities the right to free and continuous access to natural resources on their lands.
The Long Sayan Declaration will be delivered to Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud, Sarawak Tourism Minister and the minister in charge of Penan affairs, Abang Johari Tun Abang Openg ( photo ).
The concerns against logging activities of Sarawak's native communities have been an on-going issue due to their poorly defined land rights.
In April, several native groups, including the Penan, Kayan and Kenyah communities in Baram, Sarawak, erected obstacles at road entrances to controversial logging sites in an attempt to stop further logging activity.
Contacted today, SAM activist Thomas Jalong said several companies have agreed not to encroach further into the natives' communal forests.
"The affected Penans are trying to [obtain] written undertaking from the companies and authorities so that similar situations do not arise in future," he said.
However, Jalong added that several other companies, including Sarawakian logging companies Interhill, Shin Yang and Samling, have yet to address the natives' demands.
