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WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Nomadic
Rain-Forest Dwellers in Malaysia Fear Extinction
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
http://forests.org/ -- Forest
Conservation Archives
http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest
Conservation
8/16/99
OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY by EE
Following
is an update of the couple decade long struggle by the Penan
of
Malaysia to continue their lives in their forests. Despite the
best
efforts of many, the brutal repression of indigenous cultures in
Malaysia
continues, as the Penan and other rainforest dwellers
increasingly
worry of extinction. In the Borneo
state of Sarawak,
home of
the Penan, 70 percent of one of the world's oldest forests has
been
denuded, at a rate nearly twice that of the Amazon. While the
destruction
of indigenous cultures has been a universal component of
western
style development; it is indefensible that outright land
theft,
persecution and genocide continues to this day against those
that
are most in touch with their land.
Shame on Malaysia.
g.b.
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TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Nomadic rain-forest tribe in Borneo fears
extinction
Source: Associated Press
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for
permission to reprint
Date: August 15, 1999
Byline: BETH DUFF-BROWN
IN THE
BORNEO RAIN FOREST (August 15, 1999 1:26 a.m. EDT
http://www.nandotimes.com)
- The Borneo headman drew his clenched fist
to the
midnight fire, opened his palm to the moon and revealed the
flint
he had kept in a bamboo box around his neck. "This was handed
down by
my grandfather and he got it from his grandfather," says Along
Sega.
"I'll
show them that I have more power in this fire-maker than all the
loggers
put together."
The
next morning, a shotgun blast boomed through the jungle. It
silenced
the shrilling cicadas. One young tribesman reached for his
poison
blowpipe, another for his spear.
The
gunshot, almost certainly fired by a hunter from a nearby logging
camp,
was a reminder that here, hundreds of miles from paved roads and
electricity,
seemingly centuries from modern civilization, Along and
his
Penan tribe are fighting a losing battle.
All the
loggers put together greatly overpower the people known as the
lost
tribe of Borneo, among the last rain-forest nomads in the world.
Along
believes only 260 Penans still live in the jungle. He can't be
sure
because they don't count one another. Nor do they track time or
age.
"But
we are dying," Along said. "Of this we can be sure."
The
timid nomads are being stampeded out of their dark jungle
homeland.
Logging, and the tug of city life and modern ways, are
pushing
them to extinction with the turn of the new millennium.
Environmentalists
estimate that in the Borneo state of Sarawak, home
of the
Penans, 70 percent of one of the world's oldest forests has
been
denuded, at a rate nearly twice that of the Amazon.
Most of
the 9,000 Penans on the Malaysian side of Borneo have moved
into
temporary government settlements. Only some 63 families remain in
the
jungle, living off hearts of palm, wild fruit, bear and boar.
The
wild game has dwindled, the rivers are polluted by logging waste,
and
many trees whose bark and leaves provide everything from snakebite
antidotes
to contraceptives have died out.
"Tell
them to stop the bulldozers," Along urged a rare Western visitor
who had
slipped across logging territory in northeastern Sarawak and
hiked
into the rain forest with a Penan guide. "Tell them to give us
back
our lives."
In the
jungle, bare-chested with loincloth, Along was a compelling
sight.
A man in his late 50s, his dense black hair was severely
cropped
at the forehead and shaved above his ears. Each earlobe was
pierced
with a three-inch hole, then jammed with a tight spiral of
bamboo
that dangled to his neck.
Three
weeks later and 350 miles west, in the Sarawak capital of
Kuching,
he cut a different figure. He seemed sadly out of place among
the
McDonald's restaurants, the businessmen with cell phones, the
Muslim
women on mopeds with helmets over their headscarves. He wore
the
blue jogging pants that his Western visitor had left at his camp.
He and
a dozen other Penans had come to the city to mount yet another
protest
against the loggers.
At the
center of attention was a short, wiry man with a shaved head
and an
infectious laugh, a former shepherd from Switzerland named
Bruno
Manser whose lone battle for the Sarawak rain forest has won
international
attention.
If the
Penans regard anyone as their savior, it is Manser. The 45-
year-old
Swiss has spent 15 years crusading for the Sarawak rain
forest
and lived with the Penans from 1984 to 1990. He joined
thousands
of them in confronting the bulldozers in highly publicized
logging
blockades. Expelled from Sarawak, he has returned secretly
several
times.
On his
latest visit, he had just walked 150 miles from the Indonesian
side of
the island to elude authorities and mount another stunt to get
the
government's attention.
He
intended to fly a paraglider into the compound of Chief Minister
Abdul
Taib Mahmud, Sarawak's highest official. But he kept crashing or
getting
tangled up in trees. Finally the propeller broke. Things
didn't
look good.
Manser's
difficulties would cause few Malaysians to shed tears.
Malaysia,
which shares sovereignty over Borneo with Indonesia and
Brunei,
is famously prickly about Westerners telling it what to do,
and the
logging issue is part of that broader East-West standoff.
Already
in 1992, on the eve of the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,
Malaysian
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was denouncing Manser's
campaign
as "the height of arrogance." Today his words are echoed by
Barney
Chan, general manager of the Sarawak Timber Association.
"I
know that it's not politically correct to say, but you have a bunch
of
white guys running around telling the brown man what to do," said
Chan.
"It's a situation whereby very few people, 260 Penans, are on
one
side and on the other side you have a few hundred thousand people
benefiting
from logging."
By
"white guys," he meant U.S. Vice President Al Gore and other
international
luminaries who have lent public support to Manser's
cause.
The
timber industry produces $1.5 billion in annual revenue and
provides
good livelihoods for 100,000 families. It says it's tired of
Manser
and others crying environmental and human devastation. And it
is
offering to set aside land for the Penans.
"With
or without Bruno, we - meaning the government of Sarawak - are
on the
side of the Penans and we're willing to help the Penans," said
Chan.
Logging
began sweeping across Mississippi-sized Sarawak in the 1970s,
and
Malaysia quickly became the world's No. 1 exporter of tropical
hardwoods
for scaffolding, chopsticks and furniture.
But by
1991, even the pro-logging International Tropical Timber
Organization
warned that Sarawak would be denuded within 13 years if
the 150
timber concessions didn't cut production drastically. It
recommended
halving exports and halting logging on steep slopes to
prevent
erosion.
The
government insists it responded well. Within five years, it says,
exports
were more than halved. And last year, Sarawak's state
government
passed legislation banning all commercial hunting in an
effort
to protect tribal food sources.
Asia's
1997 economic crisis also intervened. Japan, Taiwan, South
Korea
and Thailand, the biggest customers for wood, cut their
purchases
and by the following year exports were down 30 percent.
Four-fifths
of Sarawak is covered in forest. More than half of it is
licensed
for logging under a system that fells 8 to 12 trees for every
2 1/2
acres, replanting and then allowing the forest to regenerate for
25
years.
About
12 percent of the rain forest has been set aside as protected
areas
for national parks and wildlife sanctuaries.
But
while the plan appears solid on paper, environmentalists say it it
isn't
happening in reality, that erosion and river silt have already
destroyed
ecological gene pools long before regeneration can occur.
"Only
the most remote areas of Sarawak haven't been affected by
logging,"
said Thomas Jalong, coordinator of the Sarawak branch of the
environmentalist
Friends of the Earth. "Logging activities are now
carried
out right in the interior and most of these areas are
sensitive
ecological zones."
Only
seven hours by foot from remote Penan territory, many patches of
balding
cliffs are visible where trees have been uprooted.
"We
may be on the losing end now," said Jalong. "Despite all the
campaigns
and all the concerns, both locally and internationally, the
logging
activities still go on undeterred."
Logging,
poaching and man-made fires to clear land for palm-oil
plantations
have cut deep into Sarawak's rich wildlife. The red-haired
orangutan,
found only in Borneo, faces extinction, its numbers down
from an
estimated 180,000 a decade ago to no more than 30,000 today.
Also on
the endangered list is the hornbill, Sarawak's state bird,
which
is known for its huge curved beak and piercing call.
It is
revered by the Penans.
"When
the hornbill calls, it's like hearing our father speak, it makes
us feel
warm," said Along. "But now we don't hear our father speak to
us
anymore."
---
Before
daylight fades - early in a land where sunshine rarely breaks
through
thick vines of mossy elephant ears - the Penan men clear the
jungle
at the bank of the Limbang River. They whack down wiry palms
and put
up a platform so everyone can sleep above the wet ground and
leeches
massing at the scent of human flesh.
The
women weave a rooftop of palm fronds for protection from the
never-ending
drizzle and the children clip kindling for the fire. They
flick
bloated leeches off their ankles as they boil a thick paste of
sago
palm and tapioca starch.
Later they
will wrap themselves in faded batik sarongs and hum and
rock
one another to sleep.
While
most Penans who have moved into the settlements have been
converted
to Christianity, nomads are largely animists who believe
nature
has a soul and forest spirits must be protected and
undisturbed.
Their
poison darts, made of "tajem" from the latex of the ipoh tree,
are
only used to kill big game. A hunter will often return with a baby
bear or
monkey which becomes part of the clan and will never be eaten.
The
Penans never walk directly toward another person and when they
pass
by, they bend slightly and bow. Eye contact is rare.
"Never
once in the course of six years did I see a Penan interrupt
another,
let alone shout at or assault another," Manser writes in his
1996
book, "Voices from the Rainforest."
They
are a people unsuited to confrontation. But the ruin of their
habitat
has forced many of them into an existence of pleading and
demanding
and blockading, all contrary to their nature.
One of
the main problems, according to some environmentalists, is that
the
government and loggers are one and the same.
Ruled
for a century as a private fiefdom by the Brookes, an
adventurous
English family, Sarawak was ceded to Britain in 1946. In
1949,
the British awarded a timber concession to James Wong Kim Min,
who
pioneered hill logging with bulldozers and made a fortune.
Wong is
now Sarawak's environment minister.
Taib,
the chief minister, is also the forestry minister, whose
department
grants logging concessions and approves environmental
impact
statements.
Wong
and Taib declined to respond to questions for this report, but
Wong
sent a copy of his book, "Hill Logging in Sarawak," an emotional
33-page
defense of logging practices in which he proclaims, sometimes
through
poetry, his love of the land.
He
blames most deforestation on centuries of slash-and-burn
cultivation
by islanders and warns that a boycott of Sarawak hardwoods
would
result in fewer reasons to protect the forest.
"It
would be nice of course if a country could afford to leave its
natural
resources in a pristine state," Wong writes. "Every nation
exploits
its natural resources to survive and provide better living
for its
people."
Wong
has hostile words for Manser:
"He
went around encouraging the nomadic Penans to continue living in
their
primeval and unhealthy way of life, but he himself after a few
years
of vacation decided he had had enough ... - no doubt he missed
his
Swiss cheese and the comforts of civilization - and ran away from
his
friends."
The
Penans call Manser "Lakei Dja-au," or Big Man. The loggers have
dubbed
him the new White Rajah, alluding to Sarawak's past as a corner
of the
British Empire.
"Bruno
has some special power; he's like a god sent down to us," says
Kayan
Etek, another tribal headman.
Manser
says he never set out to be a crusader. The Swiss Alpine
pastures
had become too congested, and Borneo was a magical land he
had
mused over for years. So he came here "as a human being who loves
nature,
who loves life and who also loves adventure."
"That's
when I found the Penans. I joined their life for six years and
they
asked me for help. If a child is drowning and crying for help,
what
would you do?"
Manser
has consistently badgered the Malaysian government to honor its
decade-old
promise to create a 1,280-square-mile forest reserve for
the
Penans in what they regard as their ancestral land.
But a
1958 British colonial law designates all uncultivated native
land as
state forests. Since the Penans are nomadic and don't clear
land
for annual harvest, the law gives them no ownership rights.
"They
don't live for dollars. They don't ask for anything," Manser
said.
"They live only for all the resources that they find in the
virgin
forests, for the wild game and the wild fruit."
Government
policy is to encourage Penans to move into mainstream Malay
culture,
become rice farmers, get modern medical care and educate
their
children under the Malay curriculum.
But the
Penans describe the government settlements as little more than
tin-roofed
refugee camps with dirty water beneath the dreaded tropical
sun.
They are heartsick for home.
"We
want the choice to go back to the forests," says James Lalokeso, a
spokesman
for the 1,500 partially settled Penans in Ulu Baram in
northeastern
Sarawak. "But so far, we have no reserved land, no
protected
areas, and loggers are operating on our land even as we
speak."
In
1990, the European Community passed a resolution calling for the
protection
of tropical forests. Al Gore, then a U.S. senator,
introduced
a resolution in Congress demanding that Malaysia end "the
uncontrolled
exploitation of the rain forests of Sarawak."
Even
some Manser antagonists have a grudging respect for him - such as
Chan of
the timber association, who has known him for years.
When
Manser called Chan to tell him he was going to paraglide into
Taib's
compound, Chan tried to talk him out of it.
"I
told him, `Don't be stupid. This is not the Asian way."'
---
On the
second day of the holiday to celebrate the end of the Muslim
hajj,
or pilgrimage, Manser and his small crew from Europe, armed with
a more
powerful propeller, tried again to get his paraglider up over
Kuching
and into the chief minister's compound.
"I
hope the chief minister will celebrate by helping to protect the
Penans
and one of the most beautiful forests in the world," Manser
said
just before he took off, successfully this time.
A dozen
Penans had come from around Sarawak to cheer him on. Dressed
in
loincloth and holding their spears, they stood in an open field
next to
a Muslim cemetery as Manser took flight with his blue
parachute
that read: "Taib + Penans."
As soon
as he landed by Taib's compound, he was hustled into a jeep
and put
on a first-class flight back to Switzerland.
One of
those squinting up as Manser glided over the blue-tiled dome of
the
state mosque was his old friend Along, a veteran of logging
protests
who once spent two weeks in jail. He had been promised an
audience
with Taib and was prepared to remain in the big city until he
had his
say or was thrown in jail.
"Our
government is like an old grandfather," Along said. "If the chief
minister
is not yet ready to talk with his children, then we will just
wait
until he will see us."
But
there was no audience. The next day, Along was put on a bus and
told to
go home, back to the jungle where now even fewer trees stood.
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