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Campaign update / 14 August 2006:
Rainforest
dwellers successfully maintain logging road blockade in
one of Malaysia’s last virgin jungle areas
Thanks to a wave of international protests,
the Malaysian authorities refrained from dismantling a logging
road blockade set up by the Penan tribe in the interior
of Borneo.
For more than two years, the Penan community
of Long Benali (Miri division, Sarawak) has successfully
prevented the bulldozers of the Samling group from encroaching
onto their native customary lands. The unmanned blockade
was set up on 10 February 2004 to protect one of Sarawak’s
last virgin jungle areas from logging.
After timber company workers had dismantled
a similar, newly established Penan blockade near the settlement
of Ba Abang in June 2006, local authorities announced they
would dismantle the Long Benali blockade by mid-July and
brought specially trained police units into the area. However,
the local community renewed the existing roadblock and appealed
to the international public for support.
Picture: Penan of Long Benali (Miri Division,
Sarawak / Malaysia) renew a logging road blockade on 17
July 2006. The blockade has protected one of Sarawak´s
last remaining virgin jungle areas since February 2004.
(Copyright: BMF)
Penan headman: “Thank
you for supporting us. Please don’t forget us now.”
Several international NGOs responded to the
Penan’s cry for help and encouraged their members to
send thousands of protest e-mails and letters to the Malaysian
authorities and the appropriate logging companies. Headman
Sound Bujang of Long Benali expressed his appreciation for
the international support: ”We are very proud to hear
that so many people are on our side. This is strong encouragement
for us to continue our struggle.”
Despite the temporary success, the Penan of Long Benali
are afraid of what might happen in the coming months and
are asking the international public not to forget them.
They report that members of the neighbouring Kelabit community
of Long Lellang had asked the Samling management to break
the Penan’s resistance once and for all and to build
a new logging road to Long Lellang by September 2006.
Embarrassment for Samling
and Malaysian Timber Certification Council
For the Samling group, one of Sarawak’s
timber giants, the situation is particularly embarrassing:
the blockade is situated within an area for which the company
has recently been granted a Certificate for Forest Management
by the Malaysian Timber Certification Council MTCC. However,
according to the latest MTCC report on the issue, “a
large proportion of the Forest Management Unit is inaccessible
to logging operations” due to the Penan blockade.
Now that more than ninety percent of Sarawak’s primary
rainforests have been logged, the Penan communities are
protecting their last contiguous parts from logging. The
rainforests of Borneo are known to be one of the world’s
most important biodiversity centers.
Download: Map
of blockade site at Long Benali (pdf, 83 KB)
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Britain´s
Jewson Ltd. under fire:
The
Times reports on Penan protest against British lumber company
In its May 5 2006 edition, the British newspaper The Times reports
on the Penan protest letter to the British lumber company Jewson
Ltd. The letter was recently made public by Bruno Manser Fonds.
Under the title "Dying tribes takes on timber giants over lost
habitat", Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor of The Times, and
Devika Bhat report that "one of the world´s poorest and
most isolated tribes is pleading with a British timber company to
stop using timber from their home in the rapidly disappearing Borneo
jungle".
In the letter to Jewson´s managing director Peter Hindle,
17 headmen and leaders of the Penan people of Sarawak / Malaysia
had written: "We would like to draw your attention to the fact
that by purchasing timber from the Samling group you are making
yourself part of the crimes committed against us (...). Despite
our repeated protests, Samling does not respect our boundaries and
disregards our native customary rights. This is why we filed a court
case against Samling in 1998 that is still pending."
The Penan report that Jewson´s Malaysian timber
supplier, the Miri-based Samling group, is currently logging in
the upper reaches of the Sela´an river, causing heavy pollution
to the river, one of the Penan´s fishing grounds. For more
than a year, the Penan have been
protesting against the unjustified certification of Samling by the
Malaysian timber certification council MTCC. Jewson was the first
overseas company to buy timber from the MTCC-certified concession
on Penan land. The company, which is a subsidiary of the French
Saint Gobain group, prides itself as being "the UK's leading
supplier of building materials".
In a statement quoted by The Times, the company said
that it was "keen for the case involving the Penan to be heard
and the situation resolved". However, it has been reported
that Jewson blocked the e-mail contact form on their website for
messages containing the words "Penan" or "Samling"
on the very day the article was published. (8 May 2006)
The
Times article on Penan protest letter (5 May 2006)
View
the Penan letter to Jewson Ltd. (3.2 MB)
Express
your opinion to Jewson Ltd. (Please note that Jewson Ltd. has
blocked their e-mail contact form for messages containing the words
"Penan" and "Samling", so do not use these words
when sending an e-mail to them).
More information regarding the Penan protest against
MTCC, Samling and their customers:
NGO statement
criticizing the Malaysian Timber Certification scheme (134 KB)
Map of the MTCC
certification of a claimed Penan NCR area (479 KB)
Testimonials of
indigenous people of Sarawak regarding MTCC (184 KB)
Campaign poster for
free download and distribution (157 KB)
Letter of the
Penan communities to MTCC (18 August 2005)
Bruno Manser
Fonds Report on the Certification (808 KB)
Read
the original protest letter of the Penan communities (25 January
2005)
Website of the Malaysian
Timber Certification Council
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The Legacy of the Swiss rainforest activist:
Bruno
Manser biography published
The long expected biography of the Swiss rainforest
and human rights activist Bruno Manser has been published
under the title "Bruno Manser - Die Stimme des Waldes"
in October 2005. A public presentation of the book by the
Basel based journalist Ruedi Suter took place on 28 November
2005 in Basel / Switzerland. The book will appear in German
but might be translated into English later on. Bruno Manser
has been missing since his last journey to the rainforests
of Sarawak / Malaysia in May 2000 and was officially declared
missing by a Swiss court in March 2005.
For more information, see:
Interview with author Ruedi Suter (German)
Ruedi Suter: Bruno Manser. Die Stimme des
Waldes, Oberhofen (Zytglogge) 2005. 367 pages. 26 €
. ISBN 3-7296-0688-3.
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