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Penan tribe to continue blockade against loggers with blowpipes and spears Jeremy Hance mongabay.com September 01, 2009
The meeting was the latest news in a long standoff between the Penan people of the Malaysian state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo and government officials who have leased land the Penan say is theirs to logging and plantation companies.
Harrison Ngau, a Goldman Prize-winning indigenous lawyer from Sarawak, points to Chief Minister Taib Mahmud as key to resolving the standoff. "Taib Mahmud is the one who arbitrarily issued the licences and the leases to the companies over the customary land of the Penan. Therefore, he is the one responsible for causing the problems faced by the Penan," Ngau told BMF. "As such he is the one who should go and meet them and also apologize to the Penan for destroying their land, their forests and for depriving them of their source of livelihood."
Meanwhile vast tracts of Sarawak's rainforest has been stripped of its valuable timber. Now forestry firms are eyeing forest lands for conversion to oil palm plantations, which will likely leave the Penan even worse off since these estates support less game than even logged-over forest. The plight of the Penan made international headlines in the 1990s due a campaign by Bruno Manser, a Swiss national, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2000. Since then the cause has been championed by the Bruno Manser Fund. Related articles Forest people set up logging blockades in Borneo (07/31/2009) Indigenous Penan have set up roadblocks in Malaysian Borneo to stop loggers from encroaching on their rainforest land, reports Survival International, an indigenous rights' group. Malaysia's indigenous people to get land rights for first time (11/19/2008) Malaysia's government will for the first time grant ownership rights of land farmed by indigenous people, reports the Associated Press, but some may see the legal change as a scheme to promote oil palm expansion. Borneo logging road puts rainforest, indigenous communities at risk (10/22/2008) A 186-mile (300-km) logging road to the top of the Bario highlands in northern Sarawak puts the state's increasingly rare natural forest at risk, warns the Borneo Resources Institute, a grassroots environmental group. Borneo forest people reject oil palm plantation on their land (10/05/2008) Indigenous forest dwellers in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, have rejected a proposal to turn 80,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of the land into an oil palm plantation, reports the Malaysian Star. Malaysia pushes Borneo rainforest logging by deposing tribal leaders (09/09/2008) The Malaysian government is attempting to quell indigenous opposition to logging in the rainforests of Borneo by deposing community leaders and replacing them with timber company stakeholders, reports an environmental group. Photos by late Borneo rainforest hero, indigenous rights activist go online (04/17/2008) On April 19th over 10,000 of Bruno Manser's photographs will be made available to the public on-line. The pictures are rare documentation of the nomadic Penan peoples from the Malaysian state of Sarawak in Borneo. Swiss environmentalist Bruno Manser proved an unflinching and passionate advocate for the Penans in the 1990s as their territory was increasingly deforested by industrial logging companies. Rainforest chief killed in Borneo for his opposition to logging (01/03/2008) Keleasu Naan, a Penan chieftain and longtime activist against logging, disappeared in October while checking animal traps. His tribes' worst fears were confirmed when they found what they believed to be Naan's remains last month. According to the Associated Press, the chieftain's nephew, Michael Ipa, has stated that the body had several broken bones, leading Ipa to believe that "he has been killed by people involved in logging". SHARE THIS ARTICLE:
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