Media Release from Bruno Manser Foundation:

Following a Samling-sponsored journalists' trip to Borneo, Associated Press (AP) and Agence France Press (AFP) have reported on the Penan and the complex situation in the Samling concessions of the Upper Baram region of Sarawak (East Malaysia)

The two stories, which we distribute here for documentary purposes, have been carried by a number of newspapers and online services, including the Asia-Pacific edition of the International Herald Tribune.

The outcome of the public relations exercise will hardly satisfy the Malaysian timber company. However, once more, Samling has been able to use the controversial MTCC-certification to deflect attention from its destructive logging and plantation activities in other areas. It should be reminded that the MTCC-certified area, which is often used as a showcase, covers less than 4 percent of Samling's logging concessions in Sarawak. If this area still has large tracts of primeval forest, it is mainly thanks to the persistent defiance of the loggers by the local communities.

BMF will continue to monitor Samling's corporate behaviour and the security forces' activities with regard to the Penan communities, in particular the community of Long Benali.

(18 December 2007)

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Tribes fight loggers to save Malaysian rainforests, but some natives welcome timber money

By Vijay Joshi, The Associated Press
Saturday, December 15, 2007

IN THE BORNEO RAINFOREST, Malaysia: Like a slithering red snake, the dirt road cuts through the jungles shrouding an endless row of hills.

At the first sign of humanity, the logging road stops abruptly: a crude barrier of branches tied together by dry palm fronds and a handwritten warning: "When We Say No, We Mean No."

In the middle of the ancient rainforest in Borneo, this simple blockade erected by a jungle tribe has become the symbolic frontline in the battle to protect forests from a logging industry eager to harvest the bounty that feeds much of the world's thirst for timber.

"Logging has been the biggest disaster for the forests, and its indigenous people," said Raymond Abin of the Borneo Resources Institute in Sarawak, Malaysia's biggest state that occupies a part of Borneo island.

The blockade "is the last resort of the natives after all processes of negotiations and consultations failed," he said.

Protection of forests is not just a Sarawak issue.

It is part of U.N. negotiations for a replacement to the Kyoto Protocol, amid new evidence that deforestation contributes to about 20 percent of global warming.

Leading the campaign in Sarawak are former headhunting tribes, who say logging is destroying their ancestral lands and snatching their customary rights over the forests. There are other concerns that logging has damaged Borneo's multimillion-year-old ecosystem and is pushing rare plant and animal species such as wild orchids and clouded leopard toward extinction.

The forests are "what you inherited from your ancestors. During the headhunting days they sacrificed their lives to defend it," said Harrison Ngau Laing, a lands rights lawyers who represents some of the tribes.

Laing, himself a tribesman, said some 100 legal cases have been filed by the tribes against logging companies and the government. None has been resolved.

But opinion is divided among the impoverished tribes, some of whom live in settlements so remote they can be reached only on foot after days of walking through jungle trails.

To them, the logging roads are a lifeline to civilization. In the absence of development, they see the logging companies as the bearer of basic needs such as clean water, electricity, toilets, schools and transportation.

"I want children to go to high school. I don't want them to stay here in the village where there is no school. Maybe when they come back they become doctor or teacher," said Seluma Jalong, a tribeswoman who taught herself to speak passable English.

Jalong, 36, lives in Long Main village, which is reached from the logging road after a five-hour walk and boat ride.

About 70 percent of Sarawak is covered by forests, which are home to 24 minority indigenous tribes including the Penan who number between 10,000 and 15,000.

Long Benalih, where some 28 Penan families live, is one community. The leaders of Long Benalih set up the blockade Nov. 8 on the road being built by Samling, Malaysia's second biggest logging company, which earned 9.1 billion ringgit (US$2.6 billion; €1.91 billion) from wood exports in 2006.

Ajaing Kiew, a Penan leader who lives in Apoh, a few hundred kilometers (miles) from the blockade site, said his area has already been flattened by logging.

"It is sad to look. There is nothing of the forest. That side is already red earth. At least there is forest left here," he said, accompanying two reporters to the blockade site.

Kiew stopped to pick out medicinal plants. "This one," he said bending down to touch a two-leaf plant, "is to relieve back pain. And this must be placed on a wound. It sucks out all the poison in the body."

Timber is Sarawak's second biggest export after oil and gas. The state government began giving concessions to logging companies in the 1960s, and widespread cutting of trees began in the 70s and 80s. It was not until the late 1990s that the government issued strict guidelines on controlled felling of trees.

The move was too late, said Abin who described bulldozers clear-cutting swaths of forests with trees as old as 500 years.

According to the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss-based activist group, more than 90 percent of Sarawak's primeval rainforests have been logged in the last 30 years. Re-growth has restored the greenery but the new trees are not of the same quality.

"There is an urgent need to preserve the remaining old-growth forests for future generations," said BMF's Lukas Straumann.

Samling, however, insists it practices sustainable logging. It has also voluntarily agreed to oversight by the private Malaysian Timber Certification Council in a large section of its 1.4 million hectare (3.46 million acre) concessions that will expire in 2018.

The council provides an internationally-accepted certification of good logging practices, which includes dividing a logging area into 25 blocks and harvesting them once in 25 years. This is supposed to give the forest time to regenerate.

Experts say the gap should be at least 45 years.

"By and large, it is fair to say that logging in this region is not sustainable," said Junaidi Payne of conservation group WWF's Borneo program. "The rate at which the forest is being cut is way beyond the rate at which it is regenerating."

Many of Samling's European customers of its plywood and sawn timber rely on MTCC's seal of approval, which expires in 2009. The MTCC certification also requires Samling to negotiate with tribes in the event of a conflict even though the company has the right to knock down the Penan blockade because it is on legal concession land, said James Ho, vice president of operations at Samling.

"We never bulldoze any area. It is not our policy because we need a good relationship with all stakeholders," he said. "After all the forest is our life. We cannot possibly destroy it."

Samling also says it does not encroach on the customary rights of the tribes, and allows them free access to forage for food. It has donated nearly 2 million ringgit (US$588,000; €420,000) to the tribes as well as developing other projects, said Samling spokeswoman Cheryl Yong.

She said Samling employs 11,000 people in Malaysia of which 33.5 percent are indigenous people.

Ngau and Abin, the Malaysian activists, acknowledge that Samling — which this year was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange — has been more pro-active in helping the tribes than the other big five privately-held timber companies.

"Since we listed globally we want to be transparent. We know we are under scrutiny," said Ho.

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Malaysia's Penan in battle for survival
16 December 2007

By M. Jegathesan

DATA BILA, Malaysia (AFP) — Deep in the Borneo jungle, 70-year-old Ara Potong stiches a rattan mat and wonders how much longer he can continue to survive on the bounty of the fast-disappearing forest.

The grey-haired Penan tribesman, with the stretched earlobes distinctive to his people, deftly slices the thin rattan to fashion a mat that will be traded for basic goods like rice, sugar, salt and oil.

"Logging has damaged the jungles. Now it is difficult to find rattan. We need it to make mats," says Ding Liang, another elderly resident of the Penan settlement, as he watches Ara work.

"Even wild boars and monkeys are becoming rare. We do not have enough to eat. Our river is murky. Please tell the world our plight," he tells AFP.

Data Bila is located 150 kilometres (95 miles) southeast of Miri, an oil-rich coastal town in Malaysia's Sarawak state which borders Brunei to the north and Indonesia's Kalimantan to the south.

Data Bila is part of the Ulu Baram region that was famous for its teeming flora and fauna, but where many species are now becoming threatened.

It is also home to an indigenous population comprising the Penans, Kelabit, Kenyah and Kayans -- yet as the logging firms encroach ever further, their way of life is also in jeopardy.

The Penan were traditionally a nomadic people but many have now established settlements along the Baram river. Once it brought them fresh water and fish, but logging operations upstream have now turned it dark and silted.

By the 1980s they had had enough, and began erecting blockades to highlight the damage the timber business caused. Most were demolished -- some violently -- but the protest goes on.

A few weeks ago, Penans in the settlement of Long Benalih erected a new blockade across a proposed logging trail to prevent Malaysia timber giant Samling Global constructing a road into its concession area.

The structure is only flimsy and could easily be swept aside, but it is a potent symbolic gesture, and one which can jeopardise certification needed to prove timber was obtained legally and sustainably.

"We have the blockade to preserve and prevent damage to the land," Long Benalih's headman Saun Bujang said in a statement posted on the blockade, first set up in 2003 and periodically demolished and rebuilt.

"We oppose logging and construction of the timber road because it destroys our way of life and the forest products we depend on."

Samling insists the allegations of forest destruction are baseless.

"We have tried to negotiate with Long Benalih community but we have not been able to make any progress. This blockade is being put up in our timber concession area and we have not started any harvesting in the disputed area," says spokeswoman Cheryl Yong.

Ajang Kiew, chairman of the Sarawak Penan Association, says most timber players in Sarawak have little regard for the native people and the forests, although Samling stands above the rest by selectively logging mature timber.

"Logging destroyed my ancestral burial grounds in the 1980s and 1990s," the 54-year-old tells AFP.

"If you come to my village you only see red soil. The water is murky," he says. Ajang is also worried about the disappearing sago palm -- a staple diet eaten with meat from wild boar or barking deer.

Ajang has been jailed three times in the past two decades and sacked by the government as village headman for helping build blockades.

"The jungle is like a mother to us. It gives us food and protection. I am sad when the forest is destroyed. Our culture will disappear if the forests disappears. My heart bleeds when they cut the trees," he says.

The plight of the Penan was made famous in the 1990s by environmental activist Bruno Manser, who waged a crusade to protect their way of life and fend off the loggers.

He vanished in 2000 -- many suspect foul play.

Malaysia bitterly resented his efforts and banned him from the country, but Ajang says opposition to logging runs much deeper than the campaign of any one man.

"We are not influenced by Bruno Manser or any other outsiders. Our problems are real. Come to my village and see for yourselve. We are not liars."

Samling's vice-president of forest division James Ho, who is based in Miri, insists the sago plants and rattan vines so critical to the Penan way of life are not damaged in its concession areas.

"Sago plants do not have commercial value. We don't touch such plants. We practice sustainable forest management. Only trees with commercial value of certain size are cut. We follow the laws," he says.

"We do not destroy the forest. We only harvest mature trees. We are a listed company in Hong Kong and we want to be transparent."

"Unfortunately by being transparent, we are subjected to more scrutiny," he tells a group of international media which the company brought to Sarawak to witness its activities.

Ho says the Penan of Long Benalih are being influenced by outsiders, and that many others actually welcome the roads, piped water and other benefits of development that the logging brings.

Raymond Abin, of the Borneo Research Institue in Miri, said there are at least 15,000 Penans in Sarawak, including about 300 who still live a nomadic existence in the jungle.

"Many Penans have been forced out of the forest to settle in settlement camps. Their social and economic activities depend on hunting and sale of handicraft. Rattan is already depleted due to logging."

Despite the "benefits" of development, malnutrition remains a big problem, the social activist says.

"And if you look at the state development plan, it is very scary. The lowlands are for oil palm cultivation and the highlands for forest plantations. Hence, the indigenous people will be pushed further into the interior."