The Penan, a Malayansian indigenous group, build wooden blockages to prevent loggers from reaching the interiors of Sarawak's rainforest on Borneo Island. Photo: Dang Ngo
Deforestation forces a Malaysian indigenous tribe to abandon ancestral lands
By Azira Shaharuddin
Spring 2010
In 1987, a Malaysian indigenous group built and erected 25 wooden blockades along logging roads to stop trucks from reaching the interiors of Sarawak’s rainforest on Borneo Island. Their fight to stop harvesters from destroying their ancestral lands received international attention.
More than 20 years later, the indigenous Penan are still fighting to protect their lands — only this time against a booming oil palm and acacia industry.
Only 12 percent of the group still lives in the foothills, mountain areas and forests of Borneo Island, according to recent statistics by the Sarawak State Planning Unit. Most have established permanent homes elsewhere through government resettlement programs.
The remaining Penan depend completely on the forest for their livelihood. The forests are the group’s main source of food, income and medicines, wrote Harrison Ngau Laing, environmental activist, lawyer and a former member of parliament, in an e-mail.
“In other words, the forest is their supermarkets and their banks,” Laing said. “The difference between us and them is that their supplies are obtained free from the forest.”
The Penan depend on the forests for fruits and vegetables and hunt wild boar, deer and monkeys with poison darts and blowpipes.
While hunting and gathering, the Penan practice molong: a concept of conservation ethic and a notion of resource ownership. To molong a resource is to harvest it sustainably, insuring that it will regenerate.
The Penan do this with a starch taken from palm stems called sago, which is their main source of food. When the group exploits sago in one place, they move to another sago cluster to allow that source to grow back. This ensures the resource is always available.
But all this changed when large-scale logging started in the early 1960s.
Sarawak, one of two Malaysian states in Borneo, is rich with natural resources.
After Sarawak was admitted to the federation of Malaysia in 1963, the state’s main economic priority became developing its agriculture and forestry sectors. The state got nearly a third of its gross domestic product from agricultural husbandry, forestry and mining between 1963 and 1973.
By the end of the late 1980s, nearly 2.8 million hectares of forests were cleared, according to the Borneo Project, a non-governmental organization based in the United States. That’s an area the size of Hawaii.
The impact of logging and establishment of oil palms and acacia plantations on Penan’s land is devastating, Laing said.
“The Penan are now cornered by these activities from all directions that keep pushing and pushing them to only patches of forests,” he said. “Even then, it’s only a matter of time before the remaining patches of primary forests that are left will be logged or cleared out for plantations.”
The Penan are still fighting to protect their lands against deforestation and a booming oil palm and acacia industry. Photo: Sahabat Alam Malaysia
The Penan have lost much of their land. The forests and rivers in their areas are also badly silted and polluted due to loggings and plantation activities.
“So, the fish in the rivers have gone. They also have very few areas left where they can hunt, so their meat supply is also fast running out,” Laing said.
In the past 10 years, the plantations have moved into the ancestral lands of the Penan, which have since been logged, he said.
Unlike logging where the workers just built access roads and cut timbers, workers at the plantations clear-cut the entire forest and whatever vegetation is left on the ancestral land.
“So the situation of the Penans is really getting from bad to worse,” Laing said.
There are two types of deforestation, said Peter Brosius, an associate professor in the University of Georgia’s Department of Anthropology.
One is logging, which has the potential to recover in time.
“But with palm oil, the forests are bulldozed to clay. Even though palm oil only affects some few places, it is destined to expand,” Brosius said.
Deforestation is devastating. And its impact to the Penan goes beyond subsistence, Brosius added.
“Deforestation also alters the landscape. For example, a river which has a name and history is now filled with mosquitoes and algae,” he said.
Brosius, who has been working with the Penan since 1984, could see stark differences between then and now.
“Before, tons of games such as boars, monkeys and deer were available. People ate very well and they were very healthy,” he said. “Now, they’re really, really hungry. It’s a very hard time for them now.”
Nomadic groups have become smaller, Brosius added. In the 1990s, one group consisted of 34 people with seven to eight families. Now, since the majority of the tribe has settled down, the nomadic groups consist of single, isolated families comprising five to seven people.
“Most are elderly, and as soon as they die, it’ll all be over,” Brosius said.
The Penan are the last remaining nomadic tribe in Borneo, but government pressure has provoked settlement in some groups. Photo: tajai (Flickr)
Members of the group comment on the changes around them, he said. Most of the grumbles are about their difficulties making a living, but they also notice the destruction of sago pants, river pollution and lack of fish.
The Penan are like others in Malaysia, Brosius said. They say things indirectly, in metaphors and “even make jokes in telling or getting across the difficulty they are facing.”
Brosius remembers one talking to him, to contrast the life in the forests with life downriver.
“He said we don’t bother them, we respect them, why did they bother us?,” Brosius said.
Other expressions include: “Here in the forests, you should hear the Buhlwer’s pheasants (an indigenous species to Borneo), rather than chickens,” and “when the wind blows, we should hear the sounds of trees rather than the chainsaw”.
One saying expressed the Penan’s respect for the land: “This land is given to us by Tuhan (God). How do we know that? Think about the river, the fish in the river. When the rain is heavy, the current is so strong that can rollover boulders, fell trees. But, when the river calms back down, the fish is still there.”
Brosius remembers his Penan father speaking to him while they were sitting on top of a ridge. His father pointed to another ridge and said “over there, there is a big tree. At the very top of the tree, there is a tiny hole. My father made a hole to collect the honey. That is what I want to say to the timber companies. If you can show me anywhere in the forest one single tree with a tiny hole, I’ll shut up.”
The most pressing problem facing the Penan is the continued failure of the government to survey and issue communal titles for their ancestral lands, Laing said.
“Alternatively, the government should immediately survey and officially recognize their land. Without title, there is no protection of their rights over their land at all as their rights can be disputed by anyone as what is happening now,” he said.
The future prospects of the Penan are mixed, Brosius said.
Some Penan are being educated and doing well in exams.
“They are going to be the next generation of Penan leaders,” he said.
But he’s concerned for the Penan who are marginalized on their own land.
“Plus, many still are uneducated and it will make them very difficult to navigate challenges ahead such as problem with timber companies and getting what they want from the government,” Brosius said.
Deforestation isn’t the group’s only problem, Laing said. Dams also threaten the Penan way of life. “The state government has also planned to build 12 new hydro-electric dams and these dams will be in the Penan areas.
So they will be displaced and resettled in many resettlement areas, where they will end up as plantation workers after that,” he said.
Last year, blockades were erected again. In September, the state government agreed to a peace deal with the Penan to stop widespread anti-logging blockades. The peace deal acknowledged the Penan’s right to have their own land.
However, in early December, a news report by a local newspaper revealed the deal requires them to leave their ancestral jungle and nomadic lifestyle, and settle down permanently.
So far, there is no news yet about the progress of the peace deal. ý
Azira Shaharuddin is a second-year graduate student studying environmental journalism at MSU. Contact her at azlyn_911@yahoo.com
