MIRI – Activists are worried that the increasingly rainy weather will add to the suffering of the Penan indigenous people staging timber blockades against logging operations in the upper reaches of remote Baram district in northern Sarawak.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia’s Sarawak coordinator Jok Jau Evong said the forests that have been severely depleted of trees and vegetation on the ground are potential flash flood danger zones.
He expressed these concerns to The Vibes even as state and national environmental activists show open support for the Penan by whipping up resistance movements against logging in northern Sarawak.
Jok said there have already been several serious flash floods in recent weeks in the interior regions of northern and central Sarawak.
“There have been reports of interior settlements and longhouses being inundated by floods in the past few weeks, including Long Panai and Long Bemang (in upper Baram),” he said.
“There are also cases of mountain roads and interior bridges that are in very bad shape due to the recent floods and torrential rain.
“There have been several cases of locations in Belaga district where mountain roads and bridges are breaking up.
“These incidents showed that flash floods can be sudden and devastating in areas that had been ravaged by logging operations.”
Jok said that the Penan in upper Baram who are staging the timber blockades now are on very risky ground.
If the weather worsens and there are severe flash floods, they would be in serious danger, he said.
“The local politicians in Baram better find a way to settle these confrontations between the Penan and the timber workers at the sites of the blockades soonest,” he said.
Jok, who is based in Marudi town, said it is very difficult to reach the locations of the blockades as these sites are far inside the logging areas.
The lands on which the access roads lie are in extremely bad shape, he said.
Resistance movement against destruction of rainforest
The Penan activists in remote northern Sarawak are joining hands with environmental and native rights organisations in state and country to whip up a resistance movement against the further logging of the forests in northern Sarawak.
The activists and NGOs recently started what they dubbed their “Acts of Resistance” campaign.
The activists involved are from Keruan Sarawak, a Penan organisation in Ulu Baram, northern Sarawak; Miri-based Save Sarawak Rivers; the Kuala Lumpur-based Centre for Orang Asli Concerns, Akademi Demokrasi Malaysia, and Jaringan Hak Asasi Manusia Malaysia, and others.
It is learnt that the key figures in these movements held an online meeting last week.
The Vibes recently reported Save Sarawak Rivers chairman Peter Kallang as saying that organisations are throwing their support behind the Penan of interior Baram, some 300km inland of Miri, who are setting up blockades in their forests against loggers.
Kallang said the loggers have been aggressively felling trees in settlements where the Penans have ancestral land rights.
This was happening in May and June, he added.
Kallang also told The Vibes how tribal groups had brought their plight to the Dutch Parliament on May 13. Indigenous representatives staged a peaceful demonstration at a government building complex.
He said the Dutch government was targeted, as The Netherlands imports a big volume of Sarawak timber annually.
“We want the Dutch government to review their recognition of timber certification from logging zones in Sarawak where the rights of natives are not being protected, where natives are not being consulted via prior and proper negotiations,” Kallang said, adding that he was present on that trip, which received support from the Bruno Manser Fonds.
Earlier this year, Kallang had expressed fears that the Sarawak government will issue licences to clear huge forested areas along the Sarawak-Kalimantan border very soon, based on news that the state wants to develop the border area.
This follows Indonesia’s building of a new capital city in Kalimantan, which is expected to spawn new industrial and economic projects. – The Vibes, August 18, 2022
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