Let’s take a look at how Sarawak’s ‘green policies’ are working out in practice compared to what is being boasted of in public pronouncements.
In Baram, one of the few relatively unspoiled remaining areas of the state, native communities have fought for years with the backing of global NGOs to attempt to conserve the natural landscape.
It has been an incredibly hard fought struggle against greedy loggers itching to lay their hands on remaining valuable hardwoods. However, a deal was done with the ITTO whereby a lot of money was cobbled together by well-wishers across the world to support a project that would protect an area of 87,000 hectares from logging.
That was back in 2019 yet without the active support of the Sarawak authorities the communities of the area are still constantly battling against encroachments by “illegal loggers’ which has become all the more persistent as the availability of timber dwindles.
In fact, as locals fully understand, without the quiet endorsement of the big timber companies these small fry would not stand a chance with their competitive activities. The so-called ‘illegal’ loggers are without doubt quietly endorsed and working on behalf of the larger companies that do not want their faces to be shown.
Those companies are themselves enmeshed in a cosy relationship with the state government and have been for years. Hence the failure of the authorities to counteract this trespass and destruction, despite the loud spoken commitments to ‘green regeneration’, the ‘phasing out of timber extraction’ and all the rest.
Today, the Swiss environmental group BMF has released shocking satellite images showing the extent of the logging in the Baram area (below). “We have been asking the Forest Department Sarawak for accountability and an open conversation, but we have not heard back” said Celine Lim of the local NGO, Save Rivers, when asked to comment.
Apparently protecting vital remaining natural forest is not a concern for the Sarawak Forest Department.
However, if you move southwest to the Patin River Agricultural Heritage Village at Similajau near Bintulu, you will find the that same Forest Department is very exercised indeed on their apparent mission to restore the nation’s forests.
Let’s be clear, this is an area where the natural forest has long since been destroyed and is now planted with yet more of the relentless oil palm crop that the timber companies reckoned would earn them more fast cash after they had ripped out the jungle.
A small part of this desecrated landscape was handed to the local people by the former chief minister Adenan Satem who heard about their plight after the destruction of their native customary lands and hunting grounds. The government named the area the Similajau Agricultural Village.
That was in 2016 and the offer was made as an official commitment by the state government and the local folk have been employing their sweat and labour ever since turning it into a source of agricultural income for themselves.
Until, that is, the ‘green’ minded State Government sanctimoniously announced that it plans to extend the neighbouring ‘National Park’ by absorbing this thoroughly spent and degraded area back into forest land.
Just like that. No recognition of the rights of the locals, no compensation for their sweat and toil, just a notice to get out, abandon their homes and fend for themselves.
The state government claims it gave these folk ‘several months notice’ i.e. that they told them in March. That may seem pretty mean given that it takes a full year to plan and invest in a crop and then harvest it.
But, in fact, the local villagers say they only heard about their fate last month!
No mind. The full force of the state – officials from the forest department, police, all the rest – has been employed to turf these families out of their homes and lock them out of their farms. A large fence and “TRESPASS” sign now warns the farmers not to enter the orchards that had been officially granted to them just ten years past.
Unsurprisingly, the matter has turned into a serious stand off. The villagers have been left to camp at the side of roads and in the daytime they are demonstrating.
As with Baram, the world is waking up, together with Malaysia’s own NGOs, to this disgusting hypocritical behaviour by those in charge in Sarawak.
Suharkam, Malaysia’s own Human Rights Commission has announced it will be visiting the village area on September 1st.
Meanwhile, according to the indigenous rights radio station, Radio Free Sarawak, which has followed this outrage from the moment the desperate villagers discovered their plight, the local GPS Adun, one Majang Renggi, has not once bothered to visit the location of the dispute.
The headman representing the villagers told the radio “We are trying to contact YB Samalaju- Majang Renggie. However, we were scolded and prevented by officials in Yb’s Office – to complain or enter Yb Majang’s office”
So much for representing his constituents.
Tuai Rumah Panting ak Baling went on to say “YB Majang Renggie has agreed that our farm and garden areas be seized by the SFC. We have had a meeting and we will set up tents and blockade next week. We are determined to do so because only palm oil plantations and coffee plantations are the only source of our income.”
The SFC has increased its strength at the entrance to the agricultural area by placing 6 to 7 patrol cars 24/7. They have also installed cctv to record movements on the road and the entrance to the agricultural area.
Thus for now the community are prevented from entering their own oil palm plantations and coffee plantations. They are still appealing to the Sarawak government and SFC not to include their agricultural areas in the expansion of Similajau National Park…. a government that is taking not the slightest bit of notice of wholesale logging that is taking place in genuine areas of natural forest.
As ever, the Sarawak State Government and its GPS YBs are demonstrated to be at the service of the logging tycoons whilst playing only lip service to the desperate current battle to save our human habitat.
