SARAWAK Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) said it is time the state government reviews outdated land laws that are unjust and oppressive to native landowners.
State PKR chairman Roland Engan said the ruling state government of Gabungan Parti Sarawak must meet with all ethnic communities and native rights organisations to formulate land laws that are fair and just to the natives.
He said the natives are voiceless and vulnerable to land development projects that oppressed them.
"We in PKR Sarawak want to see land laws in this state undergo a thorough review so native landowners having ancestral land have their rights protected by the state.
"At present, the current land laws implemented from the time of past regimes often see natives suffering from encroachment and trespassing on their family land.
"Native landowners have to fight just to defend their land against developers.
"They have to struggle constantly to stop their land from being unjustly taken over.
"We call on the authorities to work with native rights bodies and ethnic communities to formulate fair and just solutions for land disputes all over Sarawak," he said in a press statement.
Engan is a native rights lawyer and a native from the Baram district in interior northern Sarawak.
The Vibes had highlighted the plight of a native landowner and his family living in the sub-rural Sebauh district in northern Sarawak who had fought off an alleged gang of illegal loggers and they ravaged the trees on his ancestral land measuring some 50 acres.
Robert Muyang, the landowner, had lodged a police report at the Sebauh Central Police Station against the illegal loggers who are working for a private company.
In his report, he said the illegal loggers had invaded his family's land in ulu Sebauh which are under the Native Customary Rights (NCR) land category. – The Vibes, April 25, 2024
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