Former British premier Gordon Brown has praised journalist Clare Rewcastle, who is also his sister-in-law, for exposing the rapid deforestation in Sarawak and the marginalisation of minority indigenous groups in the state.

In a commentary in the British centre-left tabloid The Independent yesterday, Brown outlines Rewcastle's history with Sarawak and the dire future of the state's once pristine rainforests.

He described Rewcastle has having stumbled upon what he termed as "probably the biggest environmental crime of our times", and voiced support for her efforts on the whistleblower blog Sarawak Report and UK-based Radio Free Sarawak .

gordon brown british govt meltdown 040609 01 This article by Brown ( right ) comes just two days after Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced that Radio Free Sarawak , which is being broadcast on shortwave, was under investgation.

The article begins with an introduction to Rewcastle's Sarawakian origins and her first eight years of schooling in the state before she relocated to Britain, where she began her career in journalism.

"Because of her connection to the country and track record covering green issues, she was invited to speak at an environment conference in Sarawak in 2005.

"After she addressed the meeting, she was surrounded by local journalists and people pleading for help to publicise the plight of their country.

"She knew that Sarawak was being deforested - over-logged - losing a full square mile a day. She also knew that Sarawak's rate of depletion was estimated to be the fastest, and worst, in the world," Brown writes.

Death threats and blacklists

He says Rewcastle later turned her attention to the Bruno Manser Foundation, a charity established in memory of the Swiss environmentalist who had been working with Sarawak's indigenous groups since the early 1980s.

After some successes in his campaign internationally, Manser mysteriously disappeared in the Sarawak jungles in 2000.

NONE "Clare's ( left ) starting point was not suspicion of foul play, but simply a desire as a reporter to apply normal UK-style investigative journalism to events in Malaysia.

"But since her first foray into what has happened to the forests, she has become persona non grata in Malaysia. She is now harassed whenever she visits the country.

"She has been told she is on a blacklist and will be watched. She has received death threats," writes Brown.

He describes the cause of Manser and Rewcastle as "big and threatening" because of the wanton destruction of one of the world's best-preserved forests.

Massive amounts of pollution have taken their toll on the forests, which he points out were once the best preserved of the world's top three forests and smaller only than the Amazon and the Congo basin.

"The rate of depletion is extraordinary: only five percent of the primary forest is left when it was nearly 100 percent untouched in the 1960s," he says.

‘World must act'

Rewcastle is trying to expose how the forests are being replaced by oil palm plantations, depriving indigenous groups who depend on the forests of their livelihood.

NONE "The recent Sarawak Report exposes how pressures continue to force families to leave the forests and give up on their traditional livelihoods.

"These families are being pressed to accept ‘compensation', often of only £80 (RM400), for land whose wood is worth millions," Brown's column in The Independent says.

"The courage being shown by local Sarawak people gives us all a chance to stop the destruction.

"If the world fails now, we are not guilty simply of a sin of omission; we will be actively condoning the destruction of a nation's future by people too greedy to see the trees for the wood."