[Ed. Note: This article is reproduced with permission from
the "Multinational Monitor", Vol XV, No. 4, April 1994]
D I S A P P E A R I N G T R E E S,
D I S A P P E A R I N G C U L T U R E
by Robert Weissman
MARUDI, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA -- Timeless images of the rainforest
notwithstanding, history is moving at a chainsaw's pace in the
tropical forests of Sarawak, one of the two Malaysian states
on the island of Borneo.
Government-sanctioned logging is destroying Sarawak's
primary forest at an astonishing rate, as timber companies
work through the night under floodlights to satisfy
international (overwhelmingly Japanese) demand for tropical
hardwood. In recent years, nearly 3 percent of Sarawak's
primary forests have fallen annually, a rate too fast to
allow the forest to regenerate. In 1993, the logging rate
declined significantly, with export volume falling by about
one-third, as the Malaysian government sought to comply with
an International Tropical Timber Organization recommended
annual quota. However, new threats of expanded palm oil and
other export-crop plantations, as well as a proposed giant
hydroelectric dam, promise to make up for any slackening in
logging's contribution to forest destruction.
A far-reaching, heartbreaking cultural annihilation is
accompanying the forest destruction. Approximately 70
percent of Sarawak's one and a half million people are
indigenous; among the main ethnic groups are the Penan, the
Iban, Kenyah, Kayan, Kelabit and the Lun Bawang. Sarawak's
indigenous are overwhelmingly agrarian and still
significantly forest-dependent people whose way of life is
quickly being chipped away with the stripping of the
forests.
The Penan, a nomadic and semi-nomadic people whose
population numbers about 9,000, are the most severely hurt
by the logging. The last forest dwellers on Borneo, the
Penan depend almost entirely on the forest for their
subsistence.
In conjunction with other indigenous groups, the Penan
have undertaken a remarkable, non-violent direct action
campaign against the timber companies, blockading logging
roads and halting tree-cutting for months at a time. But the
campaign itself has strained the well-being of the
indigenous communities, especially of the Penan, and so far
they have been fighting a losing battle. The loss of
Sarawak's forests is making the lives of the Penan
immeasurably harder, and sapping their spirit.
ECOLOGICAL HORROR
The extraordinary extent of the logging in Sarawak is
imposing far-reaching changes on the region's delicate
ecology.
The logging companies are systematically destroying
Sarawak's previously uncut forests. These primary forests
are the richest sites of biological and animal diversity,
since they remain relatively undisturbed.
Although logging regulations require the companies to
selectively cut only large trees -- the idea being that the
younger trees will regenerate the forest cover -- these
limitations on cutting have done little to protect the
forest. According to the World Wildlife Fund, even at the
prevailing rate of seven trees taken out per hectare, the
extraction process -- that is, the dragging of the cut trees
to the roadside -- leaves an average of 34 percent of a
forest stand open. Building the logging roads, which now
criss-cross most of Sarawak, requires additional forest
clearing. The World Wildlife Fund reports that about 12
percent of the total forest is cleared for roads, trails and
landings.
The clearing of substantial portions of the forest and
especially the cutting of the forest's biggest trees, which
act like an anchor for the ecosystem, has major ripple
effects on non-cleared sections of the forest. Bushes and
other vegetation that occupied a particular niche in the
pre-cut forest often do not survive in the post-cut ecology.
The decline of vegetation and the breaking up of the forest
deprive wild animals of food trees, as well as feeding,
breeding and migrating grounds, cutting into their
population.
The extensive clearing of the forest has also caused
widespread soil erosion and the siltation of mountain
streams and waterways. This has reduced the fish population.
The overall effect for the indigenous population,
particularly for the Penans, is predictable: their food
supply is disappearing and life is becoming immeasurably
more difficult.
Wild boar, for example, are an important mainstay of
the Penan diet, but their numbers are falling sharply.
"Before, it took a day or less to catch a wild boar," says a
man at the Long Late Penan community. "Nowadays, if we are
lucky, we can catch one in a week."
Another Penan man at Long Win tells a similar story
about catching fish. "Before it was easy to catch fish --
the water was clear, and even as a small boy I could catch
fish just by using a stone," he says. "Now, even if we use a
fishing net we sometimes cannot get any fish." Fruits and
vegetables too are becoming harder to find in sufficient
quantities to feed the Penan. "We are suffering," says the
man at Long Win. "We don't have enough food like we did
before."
LEGAL RIGHTS AND WRONGS
The Penan and other indigenous people in Sarawak have a
strong legal, not just moral, claim on the contested land.
Malaysian law provides guarantees for native customary
rights (NCR) land. Indigenous people can stake a claim to
NCR land by felling virgin jungle, planting fruit trees,
occupying or cultivating the land, or using the land for
burial grounds or for rights of way. They can also acquire
NCR rights "by any other lawful method." Legal
representatives of the Dayak people assert that "any other
lawful method" should include use for customary purposes or
hunting and gathering.
But the indigenous people of Sarawak, who have
continuously seen state power used against them, not for
them, have not been able to prevail with this legal claim.
BLOCKING DESTRUCTION
Watching their communal lands being appropriated and
destroyed, and having had their entreaties to the government
for protection ignored or rejected, the Sarawak indigenous
launched a stunning direct action campaign to stop the
logging.
In March 1987, the Sarawak indigenous staged their
first blockade of a logging road. Altogether, they set up
about two dozen blockades, using logs or wooden structures
together with scores of men, women and children sitting,
standing or lying in the roads. Logging stopped for several
months.
Toward the end of 1987, the police forced the
indigenous to dismantle the blockades, and the Sarawak state
Legislative Assembly passed legislation making the blockades
illegal.
Since 1987, there have been periodic surges of
blockades by the Penan and other indigenous groups. The
police have responded with mounting repression, arresting
hundreds of indigenous people. Although the blockades have
not halted the logging, until 1993 they were the only thing
that slowed its pace.
The logging protests have come at a high cost, however.
The experience of staying in jail is traumatic for many
Sarawak indigenous people. Being restricted to a small cell
is extraordinarily difficult for many indigenous prisoners
who are accustomed to free movement in the jungle. The
indigenous also complain that their jailers mistreat them,
placing large groups of them in over-crowded cells which
exacerbates their anxiety about confinement and providing
them with inadequate food and toilet facilities.
Maintaining the blockades also has a high price,
requiring an enormous time and labor power commitment. In
the most prolonged blockade in Sarawak, for example, 300
Penan in the Upper Baram area of the Sarawak interior
blocked a road for seven months in 1993. The responsibility
to maintain the blockade meant that fewer people were able
to spend less time collecting jungle produce and hunting.
Coming on top of the already diminished availability of
food, this resulted in a food shortage for the blockaders.
During the blockade, six Penan children and three adults
reportedly died from causes believed to be related to the
lack of food and dean drinking water.
CONCENTRATED CRONYISM
Sarawak state government officials say outside
activists have prompted the Penan and other indigenous
protesters to stand in the way of progress and their own
best interests.
The government insists it is respecting the cultural
needs of Sarawak's indigenous population and especially the
nomadic Penan. In 1993, it set aside 80,000 hectares of
primary forest for the officially acknowledged 1,000 nomadic
Penan. But Sahabat Alam Malysia (SAM), the Malaysian
affiliate of Friends of the Earth and an advocate for
indigenous peoples' rights in Malaysia, points out that most
of the set aside land is in an existing national park, and
is therefore already protected. They also fear that even the
set-aside land is at risk.
The Sarawak government also claims the logging of the
state's forests has brought prosperity to all of Sarawak's
citizens, including its indigenous people. "It's induced a
degree of mobility of people and contributed to making
inaccessible areas accessible," Sarawak Chief Minister Tan
Sri Taib told the Asian Wall Street Journal in a typical
statement in 1988. "It's benefited a lot of people. You can
see [indigenous] Ibans and Kenyahs becoming truck drivers;
some are earning as much as people with B.A. degrees."
There is little doubt the sale of cut logs has brought
in foreign exchange to Malaysia and contributed to the
building up of Sarawak. But, contrary to government claims,
the income for the timber industry has not been evenly
spread. Control of Sarawak's logging industry is
concentrated in a narrow elite which maintains close ties to
political leaders.
The details of ownership of the secretive industry
emerged in 1987 in a bizarre set of accusations and counter-
accusations between candidates running for the office of
Sarawak's chief minister. The tit-for-tat charges revealed
that logging concessions had overwhelmingly been awarded to
companies controlled by cronies, family members and
political allies of the current and former chief ministers.
The government revoked licenses and concessions covering
1.25 million hectares from associates of former Chief
Minister Tun Abdul Rahman; Chief Minister Tan Sri Taib
explained that the revocation was designed to prevent the
"wealth of the State from being concentrated in the hands of
a few individuals." The next day, however, Tun Abdul Rahman
revealed that one third of the state's timber concessions --
totaling about 1.6 million hectares -- had been allocated to
associates of Tan Sri Taib. Virtually all of Sarawak's
largest logging companies, including Sarawak Plywood,
Samling Timber, Kehutanan Sentiasa and Keruntum, were
implicated in the charges.
A CULTURAL TRAGEDY
Among the most shocking and discomforting of the
changes sweeping over Sarawak is the severe disruption of
the indigenous populations' cultures, most dramatic in the
case of the Penan.
The government is aggressively encouraging the Penan to
abandon their nomadic traditions, settle in fixed locations
and take up intensive agriculture. The government's public
justification for this policy is that engaging in intensive
agriculture rather than hunting and gathering and light
agriculture will improve the Penan standard of living. The
fact that settled communities need far less land to survive
than semi-settled or nomadic communities suggests that the
government may have ulterior motives, however.
Long Bangan is a government-created Penan village.
Located near the Mulu National Park, the government presents
it as a model village; it takes foreign dignitaries and
journalists to the village to counter negative publicity
about its mistreatment of the Penan. But even Long Bangan
presents a rather grim picture. The transition to farming
forces a radical reorientation of the Penan culture, one
that is not smoothly accomplished. The new "farmers" have to
be paid wages to till their own land. One new farmer told
Multinational Monitor that he was uncertain who owns the
crops that his people harvest.
The cultural breakdown is no less harsh for those
trying to preserve their nomadic and semi-settled ways and
adhere to tradition. The intrusion of the cash economy and
modern culture that accompany the logging companies'
invasion has undermined some of the Penan's cultural
pillars. Adolescent girls at Long Win, for example, are
embarrassed and reluctant to demonstrate traditional dances
to visitors. They prefer to listen to Western music and
dance to songs by U.S. performers such as Hammer and Vanilla
Ice. Similarly, reports SAM's Chee Yoke Ling, the Penan
tradition of oral history and story-telling is giving way to
listening to newly acquired radios.
The eradication of the forest is forcing the most
wrenching cultural changes on the Penan; in destroying their
means of subsistence, it is also destroying their way of
life. Once-proud elders at Long Win have been reduced to
begging visitors for money. "We cannot get food for
ourselves and have no way to earn money," agonizes one older
woman. "Please give us something."
----------------------
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