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updated 2001-01-31
The Star Tuesday, July 11, 2000
Stop the logging, say Penans
By Stephen Then
MIRI: A group of nomadic Penans from the interior Limbang Division has appealed to the Sarawak Government to intervene and stop two timber companies there from further expanding their logging operations, claiming that their settlements were in danger of being bulldozed.
The group, comprising more than 100 families of jungle produce-collectors and semi-nomadic planters and hunters from Ulu Madiit and Ulu Magoh, claimed that their settlements were being "overrun" by the two logging operators.
It was reliably learnt yesterday that the Penans affected by the timber-felling have signed a joint petition addressed to the Chief Minister's Office in Kuching, the Limbang Resident Office and several agencies to highlight their plea.
They claimed that unless the state authorities issued an order for the companies to cease further operations, their settlements and the jungle areas they depended upon for their livelihood would be cleared by the companies involved.
It is learnt that two Penan chiefs, accompanied by several community elders, walked for three days and nights from Ulu Madiit in Limbang-starting last Tuesday-via dense jungles to Tatoh.
They then travelled down the river in a longboat for a day to Marudi to send the petition by post.
In their appeal, they claimed that logging activities in Sungai Ureu and Ulu Madiit in Limbang and Ulu Magoh in Tutoh, Baram, had overwhelmed their ancestral land and threatened their daily source of living.
A Penan chief, Along Segak, claimed that the present jungle where they lived in had already been surrounded by logging operations.
He said their families depend entirely on the remaining uncleared jungles to sustain their daily nomadic existence.
"We greatly need assistance and protection from the government.
"The most immediate need is the allocation of forest areas with sufficient size to sustain our daily resources," he said.
He appealed for the areas concerned to be set aside as communal forests.
"We heard the government allocates land even for animals, but why not for people like us? Our people were born in the forests.
"We were brought up in the forests and it is our home," he said.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia field officer Thomas Jalong confirmed that his office had also received the Penan's petition.
He said the areas involved was part of a catchment area for Limbang River.