Why Robber Barons Love Building Dams... (repost)

The accursed Bakun Dam (brainchild of Mahathir and Daim) is doomed to fail.

Imagine we’re gathered in some holy place. An architectural wonder. Like St Paul’s Cathedral in Rome or the St Sophia Mosque in Instanbul. Or perhaps the Gateway of the Sun in Peru or the Giza Pyramid Complex in Egypt. And we’re here to knock this whole place down and build a megamall right here because it would make better economic sense.

Let's have Wal-Mart and McDonald's at this popular tourist location.

Imagine the tremendous outcry against such an outrage. We’re talking about demolishing a cultural and spiritual artifact – a monument to a whole religious tradition. We’re talking about trading in our prophets for profits. Absolutely unthinkable, right?

Now: imagine you’re living in a small house you built yourself, beside a clear stream in a beautiful, forested river valley. Your ancestors have lived here for a hundred generations. According to your folklore, the landscape is the living flesh of divine progenitors whose essence condensed to form familiar features - like the mountains, the rivers, the rocks and the trees - and who are integral aspects of a Great Spirit inhabiting all forms, a unity in astonishing diversity. To you, the fact that the land is sacred – endowed with meaning, significance, and intrinsic spiritual value – is so obvious, no one needs to put it into words.

Imagine we’re here to log this magnificent forest, blow up the hills, dig up the rocks, turn a green sanctuary into a giant construction site, seriously pollute the water basin, cause massive erosion in a water catchment area, and dam up one of the few remaining free-flowing rivers in the country. Why? Because economic growth demands greater water consumption - and water supply is a growth industry. And because we have been grossly insensitive in the way we use and manage our water resources.

Sungai Luit by Doreen Ong

A CLASH OF PERSPECTIVES

We are born into cultural perspectives that become imperceptible to us - until we find ourselves outside of them. Like fish that never wonder what water is, we grow up with assumptions about reality we rarely question. For instance, we rarely question the need for governments... or armies... or landlords... or caste systems (whether hereditary or monetary).

When we hear the word “development” we assume we know what it means. We experience the flow of time as linear, just as the world looks flat to a lowlander. When conversing with people from a different cultural and linguistic background, we assume they aren’t as clever as ourselves – because they’re not very fluent in our language.

When urbanites encounter country folk, they unconsciously assume an air of superiority. Surely our sophisticated way of life is far better than theirs! Surely they’re better off becoming more like us (no way they could ever become just like us, of course, since we have too far a headstart on them!)

Civilization creates art, it’s true, but art creates artifice and artificiality. Industrial man sees the wilderness as a vast resource that can be converted into private wealth. Recklessly, ruthlessly, we go about building our national aspirations by tearing down our natural heritage.

Morally, this is no different than a cannibal eyeing an infant as a delicious and convenient source of protein. The wilderness, like a baby, has only beauty and innocence as its defences. When Darwinian notions of “survival of the fittest” form the basis of modern society, the total extermination of entire species becomes justified in terms of Them or Us.

CONVERT OR DESTROY THE SAVAGES!

Unfortunately, some of us don’t truly appreciate anything until it’s gone forever. Hardwoods can be converted into hard cash. Ignorant savages can be converted into consumers, taxpayers, mindless believers, obedient slaves of the System.

Filthy heathens have no souls and feel no pain - unlike us civilized God-fearing folks.

Some of us have tried to warn the others about the folly of such shortsighted behavior – and the dangerous consequences lurking ahead. For the most part we have been ignored.

The Earth fights back by getting feverish. When her flesh is torn apart by man’s rapacious machines, she shudders and quakes and sweats profusely, releasing a deluge of mysterious plagues upon us.

The Earth coughs and we realize we're living on the back of a gigantic whale.

At the fountain of knowledge, we drank too thirstily, only to become drunk with a false sense of power. We thought we could manipulate the masses with fear and greed. But the fear and greed enslaved us instead. Now we find ourselves powerless to alter our destructive course. We’re on the fast track and can’t stop the mindless runaway train of economic growth. Our materialistic definition of growth has limited us to the physical world, and excluded us from the limitless realm of the metaphysical. This growth has now taken on the form of a cancer that is about to kill us all – unless we redirect our attention to growth in mental and spiritual terms.

Cash crops bring fast bucks - and fast bucks is what drives "progress."

For a start, we can apologize for the hideous damage we have inflicted on the wilderness and indigenous ways of life. Then we could focus our efforts on helping the wounds heal. Only in a quest for renewed wholeness can we find our collective way home. And only through the heart can we know the universal love that redeems tragedy and transforms it into a higher truth.

Damnation is the fate of those who would turn the Earth into a living hell where everything is measured in terms of buy and sell. Our salvation can only come from regaining our lost innocence and restoring the beauty of our wildernesses.


We don’t really have a choice: win-win or lose-lose are the only options left.

[Written in June 2001 in response to the Selangor Dam project; but still topical in view of all the destructive dams currently under construction, or under consideration. First posted 3 November 2009, reposted 30 June 2014 & 30 May 2019]

Bruno Manser did not die in vain...

Bruno Manser, before he mysteriously vanished in Sarawak, believed to be murdered...

PRESS STATEMENT FROM THE BRUNO MANSER FUND

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear friends,

The Bruno Manser Fund's "Stop Corruption Dams" campaign has achieved a major victory today as mining giant Rio Tinto PLC has announced it will scrap plans for a US$2 billion aluminium smelter project in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. According to Dow Jones Newswires, Rio Tinto decided to scrap the controversial smelter plans as negotiations with the Taib family-controlled Cahya Mata Sarawak and the Taib-controlled Sarawak Energy Bhd failed to bear results. Jacynthe Cote, chief executive of Rio Tinto Alcan's aluminium division said "agreement on a long term competitive power supply contract couldn't be reached" with the Taib family businesses.

Rio Tinto's announcement is a major blow for the Sarawak state government under Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud who consistently used the aluminium smelter to promote the recently completed 2'400 MW Bakun dam, Asia's largest dam outside China. As a result, the Bakun dam will cause a massive power glut in Sarawak whose costs will have to be born by Sarawak consumers, tax payers and Malaysia's pension fund EPF who funded the mega-project with massive loans. Plans to export Bakun's excess power to West Malaysia had to be scrapped for economic reasons.

The accursed Bakun Dam has been plagued with problems since its early inception.

The Bruno Manser Fund welcomes Rio Tinto's decision to abandon its Sarawak smelter plans as a major victory for the international campaign to preserve the natural environment and the livelihoods of Sarawak's indigenous peoples.

Rio Tinto's decision proves that the Taib government's irresponsible economic policies have completely failed. There is no need to build another twelve dams in the state as envisaged by the Taib government. All these corruption-driven dam plans that would only benefit the Taib family's construction companies must come tho a halt now.

Taib Mahmud: insatiable greed personified

This is the kind of development that you have to expect from a kleptocratic potentate who believes in witchcraft instead of sound economic analysis and blatantly abuses his public office in order to rob his people.

The Bruno Manser Fund is calling on the Sarawak government to immediately halt the ongoing construction works for the Murum dam and to shelve all further dam plans in Sarawak. We are also calling on the Malaysian federal government to explain how the Bakun dam should ever become profitable and how the EPF (Employees Provident Fund) loans to Bakun will be secured.

Your BMF team

Bruno Manser, the Ghost That Walks in Sarawak...

Bruno Manser, a real-life Toruk Makto
to the endangered Penan tribe

Well-connected friends in Sarawak whisper that a massive bounty was placed on Bruno Manser's head more than 12 years ago. The money was put up by several logging companies linked to Chief Minister Taib Mahmud who hated Manser's guts. Some say the reward for Manser's head was at least RM1 million.

Bruno has been missing since May 2000, the last time anyone heard from the larger-than-life Swiss artist who transformed himself into a Rambo against the destruction of Borneo's precious rainforests and inspired the Penan to resist the systematic ethnocide perpetrated against them by Taib's corrupt regime.

The valiant spirit of Bruno Manser lives on as the foundation he inaugurated in Switzerland to continue his important mission. I salute this wholly admirable hero who dedicated his life to battling a voracious and vampiric political and corporate dynasty hellbent on destroying an entire ancient ecosystem.

Thanks to the Bruno Manser Foundation, the world can see what is actually happening behind the tight security surrounding the accursed Bakun Dam - demented brainchild of Daim Zainuddin and Mahathir Mohamad...

Members of the Ukit tribe forced to live in floating houses as the waters rise

They were offered a barren resetttlement site and because they refused to budge,
received no compensation

Hanging on to a bleak existence, battling against despair

Thousands of drowned trees along the periphery of the man-made lake

Apart from the trees, how many other magnificent lifeforms have been killed by Bakun Dam?

Yet another ill-conceived, wasteful and unnecessary mega-project from BN

READ THE FULL TRAGIC STORY HERE.

THE CURSE OF BAKUN (REVISITED)

Bakun dam to be much worse than PKFZ scandal

Kua Kia Soong
Malaysiakini | September 22, 2009

Nearly 50 years after independence for Sarawak, we see a comparison with the 'Highland Clearances' in Scotland during the 18th century when the highlanders were driven off their lands for capitalistic sheep farming.

The English did it with brutality and thoroughness through “butcher” Lord Cumberland and even obliterated the 'wild' Celtic mode of life.

What we have seen in Sarawak recently has the same capitalist logic, namely, to drive the indigenous peoples out of their native customary lands so that these lands can be exploited for their commercial value and the indigenous people can be “freed” to become wage labourers.

Thus, even though the accursed Bakun dam had been suspended in 1997 due to the financial crisis, the government still went ahead to displace 10,000 indigenous peoples to the Sungai Asap resettlement camp in 1998.

Well, there is a reason for this - the contract for the Sungai Asap camp had already been given out to a multinational company. After all, the whole Bakun area, which is the size of the island of Singapore and home to the indigenous peoples, had already been thoroughly logged.

All this happened while Dr Mahathir Mahathir was the prime minister. Wasn't he a liability to the BN government then?

I was part of the fact-finding mission to Sungai Asap in 1999 and even then we could see the destruction of so many unique indigenous communities and their cultures, including the Ukit tribe.

There was only one word to describe what had been done to these indigenous peoples and their centuries-old cultures... wicked!

Banned from my own country

As a result of my concern for the indigenous peoples and the natural resources of Sarawak, I was told at Kuching airport in August 2007 that I could not enter Sarawak. So much for 1Malaysia! So much for national integration! So much for nearly 50 years of independence! I was not even welcome in my own country.

But the contracts for the resettlement scheme and the logging are chicken feed compared to the mega-bucks to be reaped from the mega-dams. Even before the Bakun dam ever got started, Malaysian taxpayers had to compensate dam builder Ekran Bhd and the other “stakeholders” close to RM1 billion in 1997.

How much does it cost to pay our 'mata-mata' (police) to investigate the alleged scandalous rape of our Penan women?

The contracts from building the Bakun dam and the undersea cable run in excess of RM20 billion. Malaysian taxpayers won't know the final cost until they are told the cost overruns when the projects have been completed.

But if the Port Klang Free Zone (PKFZ) scandal is anything to go by, the leaks and non-accountability all along the line will result in Malaysian taxpayers paying billions for the same kind of daylight robbery.

In the early 90s, when the government was trying to assure us that there would be no irresponsible logging in Sarawak, I pointed out in Parliament that if the government could not monitor the Bukit Sungai Putih permanent forest and wildlife reserve just 10 minutes from Kuala Lumpur, how did they expect us to believe they could monitor the forests in Bakun?

Likewise today, if the government cannot monitor a project in Port Klang just half an hour from Kuala Lumpur, how can they assure us that they can monitor a project deep in upriver Sarawak and through 650km of the South China Sea?

How can we be assured that we will get to the bottom of politically-linked scandals when the Sarawak police tell us they don't have the resources to investigate the rape of Penan women and girls?

How can we be assured that the Sarawak state government cares about its indigenous peoples and its natural resources when NGO activists are banned from entering Sarawak to investigate a part of their own country?

It makes no economic sense

In 1980, the Bakun dam was proposed with a power generating capacity of 2,400MW even though the projected energy needs for the whole of Sarawak was only 200MW for 1990.

The project was thus coupled with the proposal to build the world's longest (650km) undersea cable to transmit electricity to the peninsula. An aluminum smelter at Sarawak's coastal town of Bintulu was also proposed to take up the surplus energy.

In 1986, the project was abandoned because of the economic recession although the then PM Mahathir announced just before the UN Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil that this was “proof of Malaysia's commitment to the environment.”

So what happened to that commitment, Mahathir?

In 1993, with the upturn in the Malaysian economy, the government once again announced the revival of the Bakun dam project. To cushion the expected protests, then Energy Minister S Samy Vellu gave Parliament a poetic description of a “series of cascading dams” and not one large dam as had been originally proposed.

Before long, it was announced that the Bakun dam would be a massive 205-metre high concrete face rockfill dam - one of the highest dams of its kind in the world - and it would flood an area the size of Singapore island.

The undersea cable was again part of the project. There was also a plan for an aluminum plant, a pulp and paper plant, the world's biggest steel plant and a high-tension and high-voltage wire industry.

Have feasibility studies been done to see if there will be adequate local, regional and international demand for all these products?

Six years later, after the economy was battered by the Asian Financial Crisis, the government again announced that the project would be resumed albeit on a smaller scale of 500MW capacity.

Before long in 2001, the 2,400MW scale was once again proposed although the submarine cable had been shelved. Today we read reports about the government and companies still contemplating this hare-brained undersea scheme which is now estimated to cost a whopping RM21 billion!

More mega-dams to be built

The recent announcement that the Sarawak government intends to build two more mega-dams in Sarawak apart from the ill-fated Bakun dam is cause for grave concern.

Malaysian taxpayers, Malaysian forests and Malaysian indigenous peoples will again be the main victims of this misconceived plan. We have been told that some 1,000 more indigenous peoples will have to be displaced from their ancestral lands to make way for these two dams.

Apart from the human cost, ultimately it will be the Malaysian consumers who pay for this expensive figment of Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's wild imagination. Indeed, enough taxpayers' money has been wasted - Sarawak Hidro has already spent some RM1.5 billion on the Bakun dam project.

Right now, the country is being fed conflicting reports about energy demand. There is supposed to be a 43 percent oversupply of electricity capacity in peninsular Malaysia. Experienced Bakun dam watchers will tell you such conflicting and mutually contradictory assertions have been used by the dam proponents to justify every flip flop of this misconceived project.

Apart from the economic cost and the wastage, how are investors supposed to plan for the long-term and medium term? What is the long-term plan for Bakun? Can Bakun compete with the rest of the world or for that matter, Indonesia?

The suggestion for aluminum smelters to take up the bulk of Bakun electricity have been mentioned ever since the conception of the Bakun dam project because they are such a voracious consumer of energy. Even so, has there ever been any proper assessment of the market viability of such a project with the cheaper operating costs in China?

Does it matter that the co-owner of one of the smelters is none other than Cahaya Mata Sarawak (CMS) Bhd Group, a conglomerate controlled by Taib's family business interest?

Sarawak's tin-pot government

Clearly, Bakun energy and Sarawak's tin-pot governance do not give confidence to investors. First it was Alcoa, and then Rio Tinto - both giant mining multinationals - had expressed second thoughts about investing in Sarawak.

Concerned NGOs have all along called for the abandonment of this monstrous Bakun dam project because it is economically ill-conceived, socially disruptive and environmentally disastrous.

The environmental destruction is evident many miles downstream since the whole Bakun area has been logged by those who have already been paid by Sarawak Hidro.

The social atrophy among the 10,000 displaced indigenous peoples at Sungai Asap resettlement scheme remains the wicked testimony of the Mahathir/Taib era. The empty promises and damned lives of the displaced peoples as forewarned by NGOs in 1999 have now been borne out.

The economic viability of the Bakun dam project has been in doubt from the beginning and the announcement to build two more dams merely reflects a cavalier disregard for the indigenous peoples, more desecration of Sarawak's natural resources and a blatant affront to sustainable development.

When will Malaysians ever learn?

Dr KUA KIA SOONG is director of Suaram. He was member of parliament for Petaling Jaya from 1990 to 1995.

TAIB THE OCTOPUS

Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib bin Mahmud (born 21 May 1936 in Miri, Sarawak) is the fourth and current Chief Minister of Sarawak. He is also the state Financial Minister and state Planning and Resource Management Minister. Taib is the President of Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu (PBB), which is part of the Barisan Nasional coalition. He is of ethnic Melanau descent.

Taib is informally known as Pak Uban, which translates into "white-haired uncle". Among Chinese speaking communities he is known as Bai Mao (白毛) which means "white hair." Another informal name for him, in reference to the British Brooke family that ruled Sarawak as White Rajahs in the 19th and early 20th century, is "last white rajah" or "white-haired rajah." Holding the post of the Chief Minister of Sarawak since 1981, he is the longest serving Chief Minister in Malaysia. Being a member of the Malaysian Parliament for 38 years, Taib is also the second longest serving parliamentarian in Malaysia after Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah.

[Source: Wikipedia]

Congratulations, Taib!

To find out what else this man has accomplished after three decades in power, check out these links:

Growing Scandal – The London Connection!

New Exclusive – Taibs’ Property in the USA

Taibs’ Lucrative Links with Ontario Government

Anti-Dam Campaign Threatens Taib

Boy Racer for Chief Minister?

Kangkong Sotong, anyone?

THE EVIL THAT IS TAIB MAHMUD

PILLAGE, RAPE & MURDER ~ SEMUA OK IN MALAYSIA, NO PROBLEM!

FIRST, RAPE MOTHER EARTH FOR ALL SHE'S WORTH.

THEN GANGBANG HER CHILDREN.

DRIVE THE FILTHY NATIVES FROM THEIR ANCESTRAL LANDS!

Media Statement of the

PENAN SUPPORT GROUP

on the

RAPE AND SEXUAL ABUSE OF

PENAN GIRLS AND WOMEN IN BARAM, SARAWAK

11 September 2009

In September 2008, news broke out that Penan girls, some as young as 10 years, were being sexually abused by logging workers in the Middle Baram area of Sarawak. However, local politicians and the police were quick to dismiss these as mere allegations without any basis.

Such lackadaisical attitudes compelled the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development to establish a National Task Force comprising ministry officials and women NGO representatives to investigate the ‘allegations.’ Aided by local activists in Sarawak, they were able to meet with some of the victims and their families in November 2008.

Ten months later, on 8 September 2009, the report was finally made public. The findings, however, were not surprising – the rapes and sexual abuse did occur and the Penan girls are still vulnerable because of the lack of policing and development in their area.

The police, it appears, are still in denial. Or at best, are ineffectual.

The Associated Press reported that Huzir Mohamed, the head of Sarawak's police criminal investigations department, probed three complaints last year but found "nothing with proper evidence for us to proceed in court." Huzir also insinuated that this was due in part because “the activists did not give specific details to support their claims.”

We take offence to this statement and perception. We maintain that it is the police who have dragged their feet in this matter before back-pedalling on their earlier willingness to work with NGOs on this matter.

For the record, it should be stressed that it was the police who invited us to the meeting with the IGP and other senior police officers at Bukit Aman on 2 January 2009. The police knew they were unable to get the victims and the witnesses to come forward to give information and statements simply because the Penans did not trust the police. Instead, they trusted the NGOs more.

At this meeting, the IGP pledged that Bukit Aman would give its fullest support to a Police-NGO joint investigation mission.

Towards this end, Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Mohd Zinin (left), the Director of the Criminal Investigations Department (CID), together with senior police officers from Sarawak, met with Sarawakian NGOs on 20 January 2009 in Kuching. The purpose was to discuss logistics and terms of references for the joint investigation mission.

As requested, a draft Terms of Reference (TOR) for the joint investigation mission and a proposed itinerary for a week-long mission were subsequently submitted for their approval. The Sarawak NGOs gave an assurance that the police team would be able to meet the Penan victims and witnesses, but in neutral venues that were acceptable to the Penans.

It took the police seven (7) months to respond. At another meeting on 17 August 2009 in Kuching with SAC Huzir Mohamed of the Sarawak Police, the Miri Resident Officer and some others, we were told that the RM100,000.00 allocated for the joint-investigation mission by the Sarawak Police Contingent was only for their use and not for the NGO’s participation.

In short, we got the impression that they did not want the NGOs to be involved in the investigation. Our role was only to make sure the Penan victims and witnesses turned up at the place and date of interview as appointed by the police. The official written reply from the CID Director dated 27 August 2009 suggested that this was so.

It was also clear from the meeting on 17 August 2009 that the police and the authorities were incapable of appreciating the fact that the crux of the whole issue at hand is the distrust the Penans have for the police and the authorities, let alone the loggers.

So, to entrust the Resident's Office to provide personnel such as interpreters and to depend on the logging companies for transport, as suggested at the meeting, is as good as saying you are not interested in getting to the truth of the matter.

The police may cite procedure and laws for not going ahead with the IGP’s pledge to have a joint Police-NGO investigation mission, but their willingness to work with parties that are a part of the problem, leads us to suspect the sincerity of the police in their handling of the sexual abuses cases among the Penans.

The Penan Support Group considers the long-occurring sexual abuse of the Penan girls a hideous crime. It is also a distressing symptom of the overall situation the Penans and other vulnerable indigenous groups in Sarawak are facing today. We are committed to seeking justice for the victims and to expose and correct the wrongs being committed in Penan society.

For further information, please contact:

See Chee How: 019-8886509

Colin Nicholas: 013-3508058

for the Penan Support Group

11 September 2009

(The Penan Support Group is a loose coalition of 35 non-governmental organisations in Malaysia.)

Is it really so surprising in a land where the top cop and attorney general are known to have falsified evidence to please their political masters... ministers and their minions have stolen billions... and the prime minister and his wife are under strong suspicion of complicity in cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder?

Who cares about a few poorly educated Indians and a handful of underaged Penan girls? Collateral damage! 1Malaysia Boleh!

BAKUN'S SOCIAL RUIN ~ Mariam Mokhtar

SEPT 10 — The Bakun dam reservoir project is expected to start soon, possibly next month and an area the size of Singapore will be flooded.

It is not just the environmental damage resulting in the loss of flora and fauna, or the undiscovered species of animals and plants with possible cures for the world’s major diseases that we will grieve over.

Rather, it is the terrifying and regrettable social ruin faced by the people who belong to this region that we will mourn.

These people have previously been hounded by logging companies or the intrusion of oil palm plantations. The hunting grounds and their rivers have all been severely depleted. The forest products which they gather and sell, and the traditional medicines which they derive from the jungles have also been drastically reduced.

As an environmental scientist, my work experience in Sarawak has left me with fond memories of the wonderful people and the place.

The massive changes will adversely affect the water levels, sedimentation, silting, water-borne diseases and the micro-climate. The ecology of the virgin rain-forest is very susceptible to changes that are man-made. There will be permanent damage to fisheries, water quality, fertility of farmlands and forests.

The heart of Borneo belongs to the noble and proud indigenous peoples who comprise the Kayans, Kenyahs and Penans as well as other various Orang-Ulus. These are their homelands. Their history started here. Their culture, kingdoms, traditions, battles, way of life all originated from here.

Some may have been subsistence farmers while a few led a nomadic way of life. Others were expert in the art of boat making, a skill shown in how they can hew a boat from a single trunk of belian. Many showed extreme artistic traits in carving and weaving.

Nevertheless, the chase for progress should not be at the expense of these people. Gone will be the various historical artifacts, their burial grounds, the “totem-pole” equivalent and other treasures that have made up much of their history. Gone will be the longhouses decorated with murals and intricate carvings.

It is a tragedy when the stories, myths and legends that have been passed down from father to son and that can normally be traced to particular locations, trees or rivers will soon be wiped out. Landmarks with significance will be obliterated.

It is a tragedy when there is little connection between their methods of farming, fishing, rituals or methods of hunting, with the way they now live. Their place of relocation has little meaning or sense of belonging.

It is disastrous that man’s desire for modernity and hunger for energy strips others of their rich history.

It is dreadful that Malaysians have always to think in being the “greatest”. In this case, Bakun being the biggest dam outside of China, the dam with the tallest concrete rockfill dam in the world, the one with the largest lake in Malaysia by storage volume or that the Bakun submarine power cables will be the longest in the world.

Progress without culture is a tragedy; but culture without progression, is unforgiveable.

[Source: Malaysian Insider]

TAIB MAHMUD, TIME'S UP FOR YOU!

PENAN TRIBE ESCALATES ANTI-LOGGING CAMPAIGN

Malaysiakini | 23 Aug 2009 | 11:13am

Hundreds of Penan tribespeople armed with spears and blowpipes have set up new blockades deep in the Borneo jungles, escalating their campaign against logging and palm oil plantations.

Three new barricades, guarded by Penan men and women who challenged approaching timber trucks, have been established in recent days. There are now seven in the interior of Sarawak.

"They are staging this protest now because most of their land is already gone, destroyed by logging and grabbed by the plantation companies," said Jok Jau Evong from Friends of the Earth in Sarawak.

"This is the last chance for them to protect their territory. If they don't succeed, there will be no life for them, no chance for them to survive."

Penan chiefs said that after enduring decades of logging which has decimated the jungles they rely on for food and shelter, they now face the new threat of clear-felling to make way for crops of palm oil and planted timber.

"Since these companies came in, life has been very hard for us. Before it was easy to find animals in the forest and hunt them with blowpipes," said Alah Beling, headman of Long Belok where one of the barricades has been built.

"The forest was once our supermarket, but now it's hard to find food, the wild boar have gone," he said in his settlement, a scenic cluster of wooden dwellings home to 298 people and reachable only by a long suspension bridge.

Alah Beling said he fears that plans to establish plantations for palm oil - which is used in food and for biofuel - on their ancestral territory, will threaten their lifestyle and further pollute the village river with pesticide run-off.

"Once our river was so clear you could see fish swimming six feet deep," he said as he gestured at the waterway, which like most others in the region has been turned reddish-brown by the soil that cascades from eroded hillsides.

Indigenous rights group Survival International said the blockades are the most extensive since the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Penan's campaign to protect their forests shot to world attention.

"It's amazing they're still struggling on after all these years, more than 20 years after they began to try to fight off these powerful companies," said Miriam Ross from the London-based group.

Official figures say there are more than 16,000 Penan in Sarawak, including about 300 who still roam the jungle and are among the last truly nomadic people on Earth.
The blockades, which Friends of the Earth said involve 13 Penan communities home to up to 3,000 people, are aimed at several timber and plantation companies including Samling, KTS, Shin Yang and Rimbunan Hijau.

After clearing much of the valuable timber from Sarawak, some of these companies are now converting their logging concessions into palm oil and acacia plantations.

"They told us earlier this month they were coming to plant palm oil, and I said if you do we will blockade," said Alah Beling.

"They told us we don't have any rights to the land, that they have the licence to plant here. I felt very angry - how can they say we have no right to this land where our ancestors have lived for generations?"

Even on land that has been logged in the past, Penan can still forage for sago which is their staple food, medicinal plants, and rattan and precious aromatic woods which are sold to buy essential goods.

"Oil palm is worse because nothing is left. If they take all our land, we will not be able to survive," the Long Belok headman said.

Masing dismisses Penan as good storytellers


Sarawak's Rural Development Minister James Masing (right) admitted some logging companies had behaved badly and "caused extensive damage" but said the Penan were "good storytellers" and their claims should be treated with caution.

"The Penan are the darlings of the West, they can't do any wrong in the eyes of the West," he said.

Masing said disputes were often aimed at wringing more compensation from companies, or stemmed from conflicts between Penan and other indigenous tribes including the Kenyah and Kayan about overlapping territorial claims.

He said the current surge in plantation activity was triggered by Sarawak's goal to double its palm oil coverage to one million hectares - an area 14 times bigger than Singapore.
"The time we have been given to do this is running short. 2010 is next year so we want to make that target and that is why there may be a push to do it now, to fulfil our goal established 10 years ago," he said.

"In some areas the logging has not been done in accordance with the rules and some of the loggers have caused extensive damage. That does happen and I do sympathise with the Penan along those lines," he said.

"But the forest has become a source of income for the state government so we have to exploit it".

Whole valleys stripped of vegetation


Driving through the unsealed roads that reach deep into the Borneo interior, evidence of the new activity is clear with whole valleys stripped of vegetation and crude terraces carved into the hills ready for seedlings.

Most of the companies declined to comment on the allegations made by the Penan, but Samling said it "regrets to learn about the blockades".

"We have long worked with communities in areas we operate to ensure they lead better lives," it said in a statement.

Its website says its acacia timber plantations in Sarawak will "enhance the health of the forests" and that it uses "only the most sensitive ways to clear the land".

The Penan allegations could discredit Malaysia's claims that it produces sustainable palm oil, particularly in Europe and the US where activists blame the industry for deforestation and driving orangutans towards extinction.

Indigenous campaigners say that past blockades have seen violence and arrests against tribespeople, but village chiefs - some of whom were detained during the 1980s blockades - said they did not fear retribution.

"We're not afraid. They're the ones destroying my property. Last time we didn't know the law and now to protect ourselves, but now we know our rights," said Ngau Luin, the chief of Long Nen where another barricade was set up.

An AFP team reporting at the blockades was photographed by angry timber company officials, and later intercepted at a roadblock by police armed with machineguns and taken away for questioning.

The plight of the Penan was made famous in the 1980s 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. - AFP

TRIBUTE TO AN ECOWARRIOR

Calls for Total Ban of Forest Burnings in Bakun Dam Reservoir

Miri, Sarawak, MALAYSIA: – The Sarawak Conservation Action Network (SCANE) is shocked to learn that forests have been burning within the catchments and reservoir area of the Bakun Hydroelectric Power Dam project without any action being taken against the culprit by the Government Authorities.

SCANE has been informed that the forest burnings were purportedly done as directed by the Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd to wipe-out the forest that would be impounded by the dam. The Bakun Hydroelectric Power Dam project is owned and developed by Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd, a fully-owned unit of the Minister of Finance Inc, Malaysia (MOF Inc).

SCANE found out that Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd has started with the work to clear the forest within the entire Bakun dam reservoir. The contracts for clear-cutting of forest have been commissioned to some contractors since beginning of the year. The forest area which will be cleared for the dam is 80,000 ha that is roughly the size of Singapore Island.

Recently the Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd managing director Zulkifle Osman announced that the impoundment of water catchments would start in October, which by then the whole dam reservoir will be flooded. By July 2010, testing for electricity transmission from Bakun dam will start. The Bakun reservoir catchment comprises some 20 sub-catchments with the main river draining the catchment is the Balui, which in turn is fed by the Murum, Bahau and Linau Rivers.

SCANE was told that one of the conditions as stipulated in the contract is that the contractors and/or its sub-contractors, agents and/or workers are required to do burnings on the cleared and felled forest, without which they would not be fully paid for the work done and/or their contract would be terminated. Over the past few months, large tracts of forest have already been cleared and felled within the Bakun dam reservoir area.

SCANE is wondering as how the Sarawak Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB), the law enforcer of the Natural Resources and Environment Ordinance (NREO) fails to closely monitor the actions of Sarawak Hidro when its development activities are detrimental to the environment. It is scandalous that the Sarawak Hidro does not strictly follow the Environmental Management Plan (EMP), if any, as such stated in the Bakun Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Report.

With the current long spell dry weather, the Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd’s contractors and/or its sub-contractors, agents and/or workers have been doing a series of forest burnings. SCANE has received reports that there were open burnings carried out in the area. Fires were reported at different locations and sites in the area. In certain sites, where the fires were not being able to completely razed the felled trees, logs and debris, their workers are asked to gathered all the logs and reduce to ashes. SCANE was told that those workers who set the fires were not aware at all whether any permits for open burning had been issued by NREB as they merely followed the directive of Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd.

The unscrupulous activity of clearing and open burning of forests by Sarawak Hidro within the Bakun dam reservoir area is clearly violating to the Natural Resources and Environment Ordinance (NREO). It is such outrageous that Sarawak Hidro actions to wipe out the forest within the reservoir area without having any sense of responsibility and sensitivity toward the environment, though knowingly that its activity would cause immeasurable impacts to environment. Due to the large scale nature of such activity, burning should be ban totally before it could become an environmental crisis within Bakun dam reservoir area and beyond. Hence, it is within the jurisdiction of the NREB to take appropriate measures to ensure such activities from reoccurrence.

SCANE is extremely concerns with the environmental implications of development activities surrounding the Bakun Hydroelectric power dam project that causes drastic land-use change and deforestation of sensitive ecosystems.

SCANE warns that removing vast tract of forest, open burning and forest fires in the dam reservoir not only puts flora and fauna at risk by reducing their habitat, but also contributes to long-term environmental problems such as climate change.

SCANE strongly urges the State Government of Sarawak to put a total ban on any forest clearance and burnings in Bakun dam reservoir area until appropriate measures and management plan are in place. With immediate action, the NREB, with the conferred power and jurisdictions should take stringent action against the developer of Bakun dam project for indiscriminate burnings of forest in the reservoir area.

Thank you.

Raymond Abin

National Coordinator

Note: Sarawak Conservation Action Network (SCANE) is a coalition of leading environmental and indigenous rights organizations in Sarawak whose members include Borneo Resources Institute Malaysia (BRIMAS), Indigenous Peoples Development Centre (IPDC), Network of Customary Land Rights of Sarawak Indigenous Peoples (TAHABAS), Centre for Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Sarawak (CRIPS), Sarawak Indigenous Lawyers Associates (SILA), Serakup Raban Iban Bintulu (SRIBin), Gerempung Anakbiak Sekabai (GAS), Indigenous Peoples Institute Malaysia Sarawak (IPIMAS), Society for Alternative Living (PPU) and Native Longhouse Action Committees through out Sarawak.