Penan community blocks timber company's entry into disputed forest area
Around 40 people from the Penan community in Sarawak have set up a blockade at a logging road in Long Ajeng to prevent timber industry giant Samling Group’s bulldozers from entering a disputed forest area.
The act is the latest in a series of tussles between the local indigenous communities in the upper Baram region who want the forest land left untouched and Samling Group who claimed they have legally obtained permission to conduct logging operations there.
“We call on the Sarawak government to...
Around 40 people from the Penan community in Sarawak have set up a blockade at a logging road in Long Ajeng to prevent timber industry giant Samling Group’s bulldozers from entering a disputed forest area.
The act is the latest in a series of tussles between the local indigenous communities in the upper Baram region who want the forest land left untouched and Samling Group which claimed it has legally obtained permission to conduct logging operations there.
“We call on the Sarawak government to safeguard Sarawak’s last remaining primary forests and respect the communities’ clear will to keep these forests intact”, rights group Bruno Manser Fund’s (BMF) director Lukas Straumann said in a statement today.
The group said the blockade was erected on Sept 9 with some protesters decorating the bulldozers with posters saying “Warning to Logging Companies - This forest is a Penan traditional territory. Do not encroach on our land and our rights.”
Some members of the Penan community are also seen carrying signs saying, “Stop the Chop” and “Mai Teveng Kayeu Me'” (“Don’t cut our trees”), according to pictures sent by the group.
BMF added that 12 community leaders in the region have issued a joint letter to Sarawak Chief Minister Abang Johari Openg requesting urgent government action to halt Samling Group’s operation in the area.
The disputed forest area is in the upper Baram region located deep within Sarawak’s interior and between one of the largest transboundary rainforests remaining in the world which covers forests in three countries – Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei.
The group said it is the last primeval forest in the region and the area was reported to have been designated as a protected area.
Tensions between the Penan communities and Miri-based Samling Group have been simmering since the indigenous community first filed official complaints against the timber giant to the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC) in May.
Samling Group in return refuted the allegations of wrongdoing in managing its logging concessions and later filed an RM5 million defamation suit against environmental NGO Save Rivers, a move seen by some as intimidation.
This is not the first time that Samling Group has been involved in a forestry land dispute.
In the recent controversy surrounding the degazettement of Kuala Langat North Forest Reserve, the Selangor government was reported to have alienated the land to Perdana Parkcity, the development arm of Samling Group.
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