Marudi, Sarawak, Malaysia

Robert Weissman

Images of the timeless wonders of the rainforest jungle notwithstanding, history is moving at a super- accelerated pace in the tropical forests of Sarawak, one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo.

Government-sanctioned logging is destroying Sarawak's primary forest at an astonishing rate, as timber companies using floodlights operate 24 hours a day to supply international (over-

whelmingly Japanese) demand for tropical hardwood. In recent years, nearly 3 percent of Sarawak's primary forests were logged each year, a rate too fast to allow the forest to regenerate. In 1993, the logging rate declined significantly, with export volume falling by about one-third, as the Malaysian government sought to comply with an International Tropical Timber Organization recommended annual quota. However, new threats of expanded oil palm and other export-crop plantations, as well as a proposed giant hydroelectric dam, promise to make up for any slackening in logging's contribution to forest destruction.

A far-reaching, heartbreaking cultural annihilation is accompanying the forest destruction. Approximately 70 percent of Sarawak's 1.7 million population consists of indigenous people known as Dayaks. The Dayaks are overwhelmingly agrarian and still significantly forest-dependent people whose way of life is being deeply affected by the stripping of the forests.

The Penan, a nomadic and semi-nomadic people whose population numbers about 9,000, are the most severely hurt by the logging. The last forest dwellers on Borneo, the Penan depend almost entirely on the forest for their subsistence. The Penan, in conjunction with other Dayak groups, have undertaken a remarkable, non-violent direct action campaign against the timber companies, blockading logging roads and halting tree-cutting for months at a time. But the campaign itself as strained the well- being of the indigenous communities, especially of the Penan, and so far the indigenous groups have been fighting a losing battle. The loss of Sarawak's forests and is making the lives of the Penan immeasurably harder, and sapping their spirit.

The extraordinary extent of the logging in Sarawak is imposing far-reaching changes on the region's ecology.

The logging companies are systematically destroying Sarawak's primary (previously uncut) forests. The primary forests are the richest site of biological and animal diversity, since they remain relatively undisturbed.

Although logging regulations require the companies to selectively and exclusively cut large trees"the idea being that the younger trees will soon grow and regenerate the forest cover" these limitations on cutting have done little to protect the forest. According to the World Wildlife Fund, even at the prevailing rate of seven trees taken out per hectare, the extraction process "that is, the dragging of the cut trees to the roadside" leaves an average of 34 percent of a forest stand open. Building the logging roads which now criss-cross most of Sarawak requires additional forest clearing; according to the World Wildlife Fund, logging of hill forests clears about 12 percent of the total forest for roads, trails and landings.

The clearing of substantial portions of the forest and especially the cutting of the forest's biggest trees, which act as something of an ecosystem anchor, has major ripple effects on the non-cleared sections of the forest. Bushes and other forms of vegetation which occupied a particular niche in the pre-cut forest often cannot survive the post-cut ecology. The decline of vegetation and the breaking up of the forest deprive wild animals of food trees and feeding, breeding and travelling grounds, and cut into their population.

The extensive clearing of the forest has also led to widespread soil erosion and the siltation of mountain streams and waterways. This in turns cuts into the fish population.

The overall effect for the Dayaks, particularly the Penan, is entirely predictable: their food supply is disappearing and life is becoming immeasurably more difficult.

Wild boars, for example, are an important and much-enjoyed mainstay of the Penan diet, but their numbers are falling sharply. "Before, it took a day or less to catch a wild boar," says a man at the Long Late Penan community. "Nowadays, if we are lucky, we can catch one in a week." Another Penan man at Long Win tells a similar story about catching fish. "Before it was easy to catch fish Q the water was clear, and even as a small boy I could catch fish just by using a stone," he says. "Now even if we use a fishing net we sometimes cannot get any fish."

Fruits and vegetables too are becoming harder to find in sufficient quantities to feed the Penan. "We are suffering," says the man at Long Win. "We don't have enough food like we did before."

Watching their communal lands being appropriated and destroyed, and having had their entreaties to the government for protection ignored or rejected, the Sarawak indigenous launched a stunning direct action campaign to stop the logging.

In March 1987, the Sarawak indigenous staged their first blockade of a logging road. Altogether, they set up about two dozen blockades, using logs or wooden structures together with scores of men, women and children sitting, standing or lying in the roads. Logging stopped for several months.

Toward the end of 1987, the police forced the indigenous to dismantle the blockades, and the Sarawak state Legislative Assembly passed legislation making the establishment of blockades illegal.

Since 1987, there have been periodic surges of blockades by the Penan and other indigenous groups. The police have responded with increasing levels of repression, with hundreds of indigenous people arrested. Although the blockades have not succeeded in permanently halting the logging, until 1993 they have been the only thing stopping it even temporarily.

The logging protests have come at a high cost, however. The experience of staying in jail is traumatic for many Sarawak indigenous. Having their movement restricted to a small cell is extraordinarily difficult for many indigenous arrestees who are accustomed to free movement in the jungle. The indigenous also complain that their jailers mistreat them, placing groups of them in overcrowded cells that exacerbates their anxiety about confinement and providing them with inadequate food and toilet facilities.

Maintaining the blockades also has a high price, requiring an enormous time and labor power commitment. In the most prolonged blockade in Sarawak, for example, 300 Penan in the Upper Baram area of the Sarawak interior blocked a road for seven months. The responsibility to maintain the blockade meant that fewer people could spend less time collecting jungle produce and hunting coming on top of the already diminished availability of food, this resulted in a food shortage for the blockaders. During the blockade, six Penan children and three adults aged 30, 40 and 61 reportedly died from causes believed related to the lack of food and clean drinking water.

The Penan and other indigenous people in Sarawak have a strong legal, not just moral, claim on the contested land. Malaysian law provides guarantees for native customary rights (NCR) land. Indigenous people can stake a claim to NCR land by felling virgin jungle, planting fruit trees, occupying or cultivating the land, using the land for burial ground or using the land for rights of way. They can also acquire NCR rights "by any other lawful method." Legal representatives of Dayaks assert that "any other lawful method" should include use for customary purposes or hunting and gathering. But the indigenous people of Sarawak, who have continuously seen state power used against them, not for them, have not been able to prevail with this legal claim.

The government's position is that the Penan and other indigenous protestors have been instigated by outside activists and are standing in the way of progress. The forests of Sarawak are a national resource which should be exploited to help fuel the country's development, runs the claim.

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