"Why have we Penans set up blockades during the last 20 years? Because we want to destroy the forest? The forest is God's gift to us and serves as our source of life and we must preserve it.

"Loggers started to bulldoze their way deep into our forests in the Baram area since the mid-1980s but the government seems unconcerned. The 'Penan problem' in Ulu Baram began when logging companies devastated our forests on a massive scale."

Balang Nalan said these words during a panel discussion on developmental issues affecting indigenous peoples. He belongs to the Penan tribe in Sarawak which is trying to defend its rights to ancestral lands and forests which are now marked for further exploitation and destruction.

Balang was one of the five members of the Penan delegation from Ulu Baram who were in Kuala Lumpur recently to lobby for support from the government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for the Penan people.

Besides meeting with the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), the delegation also participated in a two-day NGO national conference on "People Before Profits: Development For Communities" held from November 4, during which the above-mentioned panel discussion took place.

Fomiss posing a threat

Balang was responding to the Fomiss representative who was quick to claim that Penan people who reject the Fomiss Project do not know how to manage the forest sustainably.

What is the Fomiss Project? The project is a bilateral technical cooperation programme launched in 1995 between the governments of Germany and Malaysia to introduce Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) in Sarawak.

And what is the Fomiss definition of SFM? The Fomiss Project brochure says a pilot area covering 169,000 hectares of forests in the Upper Baram Region of Northeast Sarawak will be licensed to affiliate companies of Samling Strategic Corporation, a major timber company in Sarawak.

In partnership, Fomiss and the Forest Department of Sarawak will achieve SFM through various steps, including Forest Zoning by functions.

Ask any Penan, who will rightly claim that logging activities and Fomiss are posing a threat to their lives and forest resources, and they will tell you this: Penans go on long hunting and food gathering trips, especially the nomadic Penans.

"The Fomiss project is confining us to a restricted land of a few acres for intensive farming. Our forests will no longer be used to provide us our staple foods such as sago palm, game and a variety of fruits and other plants.

Jungle products diminishing

"Instead it will be used for tree plantations by the logging companies. What this means is that our stewardship over the forest and land area in which we live is taken away from us, first by logging companies and now the Fomiss Project. When will our sufferings ever end?

"Who will even think of destroying the forests if their livelihood is dependent on them?" asked Balang.

Until the 1950s, 10,000 Penans lived a nomadic, hunter-gatherer existence. Penan specialists including Jayl Langub of the Majlis Adat Istiadat Sarawak, estimates that today, of the 10,000 Penans, only about 400 individuals, or 4 per cent of the population still practice hunting and gathering.

One reason for this, according to Langub, is that jungle products are becoming scarce and many Penans have opted to settle down and cultivate their food. Of the 9,600 Penans who are no longer nomadic, about 7,000 are semi-settled and the rest are permanently settled.

The forest plays a central role in the lives of the Penans, whether or not they are settled. Penan wisdom dictates that the forest is something they must look after and make use of for their basic needs and when they die, they leave it for the next generation to care for.

There is, then, a strong attachment to and for the protection of the forest - particularly to ensure that they hand over to their children a forest area capable of providing the needs of that generation.

'Molong' concept

It is for this reason that the Penans and natives from other ethnic groups such as the Kayan, Kelabit and Kenyah, exhausted of all means, have resorted to the setting-up blockades across logging roads to prevent the loggers from destroying the forests which these communities depend on for their very lives.

According to Jayl Langub, Penan harvesting strategy is based on the concept of 'molong' and on the principal of sustained yield. The word molong simply means the sustainable use of forest resources for harvest at a later time, or the fostering of resources for the future.

Penans molong all sorts of trees; fruit trees, trees for constructing houses, for building boats, and for making blowpipes; tajem trees for making their poison darts and sago and rattan stands.

Some fruit trees were molong-ed many generations before and serve as historical reminders of ancestors long gone. Trees, fruit trees, sago, and rattan can be molong-ed communally or individually, but the basic philosophy is to preserve these resources for the future. "Since the logging activities began in the Baram district in the 1980s, we have been living in fear and insecurity. Our livelihood based on forest resources has been threatened.

"We have handed numerous petitions and visited Kuching and Kuala Lumpur trying to make state and federal ministers see our plight, but the authorities have not acted on our appeals or helped us settle our problems.

The Act of State

"Besides, where can we find so much money to make so many trips to see our ministers? It costs as much as RM2,000 per person to make a trip from the interior of Baram to Kuala Lumpur.

"The government does not acknowledge that logging companies are destroying the forest and our lives, as they penetrate further into the interior.

"Instead, government officials blame us for obstructing the activities of logging companies and arrested many of us. But our blockades have continued," voiced out the Ulu Baram delegates at press conferences and dialogues with NGOs during the national conference.

Logging companies have the capacity and resources to obtain timber permits from the Sarawak state government, who has the ultimate right to issue these permits to companies to take timber or undertake development schemes.

Because native customary tenure is not protected under the Land Code, it has led to the occupation of non-natives and influential natives on lands held under Native Customary Rights (NCR).

Thus the large-scale invasion of NCR lands by timber licensees who can now enjoy the freedom to exploit the forests.

Under Section 5(3) of the Sarawak Land Code 1958 (Cap 81), the Minister has the power and right to quash any native customary rights by publication or notification in the Gazette or by bringing it to the notice of the persons affected.

Strong-arm tactics

On the expiry of the period of notification, the NCR will be extinguished and the land held under such rights shall revert to the government.

Furthermore, legislations hastily implemented or amended without any consultation with the Penans and other ethnic groups have only served to curtail indigenous land and forest rights, for example, the Sarawak Forest Ordinance 1953 (amended 1987), Section 90 (B) (1).

These amendments make it a criminal offence to set up a blockade on any road constructed or maintained by the holder of a licence or permit and/or preventing any forest or police officer, or licence or permit holder, from removing the blockade.

The punishment for an offender is a jail sentence of up to two years and a fine of RM6,000 and a further fine of RM50 for every subsequent offence.

A few examples will help in illustrating the extent of the strong-arm tactics the government and the logging companies employ on the Penans. These cases and many more are documented in the report entitled 'Not Development, But Theft: The Testimony of Penan Communities in Sarawak'

- The demolition of the blockade in Sungei Sebatu by 300 police and military personnel led by the Marudi District Police, Baram and the Baram District Officer in Marudi on September 28, 1993. The security forces hurled tear gas into a crowd of about 203 Penans, including children and the elderly. During the incident 11 men were arrested by the police.

- The alleged gang-rape of a 15-year-old girl in 1993 by the Police Field Force, or Pasukan Polis Hutan (PPH) stationed in Long Mobui;

- The threat of 'clearing' out villages, namely Long Ajeng, Long Kerong and Long Sait; and

- Abuses perpetrated upon the Penans including the alleged murder of Abung Ipui, a vocal leader in Ba Kerameu and the death of Geran Tan from Long Kerong suspected to be caused tear gas thrown by PPH personnel while dismantling a blockade in Long Mobui in which he took part in.

Will justice prevail?

Article 13 of the Malaysian Constitution provides that: (1) No person shall be deprived of property save in accordance with law (2) No law shall provide for the compulsory acquisition or use of property without adequate compensation.

The Penans, like all citizens of Malaysia, welcome development, but according to them, development should not be carried out at the expense of uprooting their lives, culture and rights as indigenous peoples of the country.

The Penans want public health and medical facilities, education opportunities and especially to be issued with birth certificates and identity cards (IC).

"Even the animals under the Wildlife Department have tags, but many of the Penans, as human beings, don't even have an IC," laments Balang, whose sentiment is supported by fellow delegates, namely Headman Bilong, Thomas, Nick and Romeo.

The Nov 4 meeting with members of Suhakam offers a glimmer of hope for the delegation that perhaps justice will prevail for the Penans. Suhakam has assured them that it will send an independent and impartial team to Sarawak this month to seek official views on the complaints submitted to the Commission by the Penans.

This will be followed by a visit to the Ulu Baram area, sometime early next year to investigate the claims and look into the whole issue of logging and the various legitimate rights, aspirations and wishes of the Penans.

Penans and other indigenous groups have established rights over traditional territories even before the advent of the modern legislations. Historically, frontiers have been fought for and boundaries were sometimes marked with blood and conflicts.

Therefore, native customary lands and forests are traditional rights that indigenous peoples everywhere, including the Penans of Sarawak, readily protect and defend.

CAROL YONG is a feminist researcher and activist based in Kota Kinabalu.

Photos by Colin Nicholas