A-Infos (en) Britain, Aanarchist journal Direct Action #40 - The Penan of Sarawak: How mass-scale logging is threatening the habitat of one of the last nomadic peoples of Borneo

The Penan are one of the few remaining nomadic peoples of the rain forest. They 
live in a diverse forest intersected by rivers and the world's most extensive 
network of caves and underground passages. ---- Their world threatened as their 
homeland in the Malaysian state of Sarawak is undergoing one of the highest 
rates of logging on earth. The destruction of the forest is forever altering the 
lives of the Penan and the other indigenous peoples of Borneo. ---- Some Penan 
are also threatened by a massive dam project. The proposed Bakun dam will flood 
70,000 hectares of land, displacing indigenous peoples and wildlife and 
destroying even more rain forest. ---- Traditional Penan society is nomadic and 
survives by hunting and gathering.

Only a handful of such societies remain on earth. The nomadic hunting-gathering 
lifestyle represents the original human condition, and was the way our own 
ancestors lived for millions of years.

Until a few decades ago, thousands of Penan wandered through the forests of 
Borneo's interior. Today, only a small number of them continue to practice this 
ancient lifestyle. Most Penan now have permanent homes by the riversides but 
they continue to make long journeys into the forest to collect food, medicine, 
and other jungle products. The physical and spiritual well-being of all Penan, 
whether nomadic or settled, depends on the survival of the forest.

The Penan, like other nomadic hunter-gatherers, have an egalitarian society with 
no social classes or hierarchies. All food is shared and each band has a headman 
who acts as a spokesperson but wields no power. Although certain tasks are 
reserved for men and others for women, there is no obvious sexual inequality, 
and neither sex exercises coercion over the other.

Today the Penan find themselves overwhelmed by the frenzy of logging that has 
gripped Malaysia over the last three decades. It is a rate of forest destruction 
twice that of the Amazon and by far the highest in the world. In 1983 Malaysia 
accounted for almost 60% of the total global export of tropical logs. By 1985, 
three acres of forest were being cut every minute of every day. With the primary 
forests of peninsular Malaysia becoming rapidly depleted, the industry turned to 
Sarawak.

The politics of timber in Sarawak begin and end in money. In 1976 the value of 
timber exported from Sarawak was US$138 million; by 1991 the figure had reached 
US$1,292 million. In a state where a majority of the 1.5 million inhabitants are 
subsistence farmers, this income represents a staggering concentration of 
wealth. Far from benefiting the rural poor, forest management in Sarawak has 
been subverted to serve the interests of the ruling elite. The authority to 
grant or deny logging concessions lies strictly with the Minister of Resource 
Planning.

More than 98% of Sarawak's timber is exported in the form of raw logs, virtually 
all of it destined for Asian markets. The role of Japan in the Sarawak timber 
industry is pivotal. The country depends on Malaysia for more than 85% of its 
tropical wood imports.

Japanese banks provided the start up loans for local logging companies. Japanese 
companies supply the bulldozers and heavy equipment necessary to extract the 
logs. Japanese interests provide the insurance and financing for the Japanese 
ships that carry the raw logs that will be processed in Japanese mills and 
dispensed as lumber to construction firms often owned by the same concern that 
first secured the wood in Sarawak. Once milled in Japan, the wood produced by 
the oldest and perhaps richest tropical rain forest on earth is used principally 
for packaging material, storage crates, and furniture. Roughly half of it is 
used in construction, mostly as plywood cement forms which are used once or 
twice and then discarded.

In 1987 resentment and anger over the impact of logging reached a flash point. 
After having appealed in vain for over seven years to the government to put an 
end to the destruction of their traditional homelands, the Penan began to resist.

On March 31, 1987, armed with blowpipes, a group of Penan erected a blockade 
across a logging road in the Tutoh River basin. By October, Penan from 
twenty-six settlements had joined the protest.

This was the beginning of one of the most remarkable resistance movements ever 
mounted by an indigenous people. Whole villages moved onto logging roads, 
building makeshift shelters directly on the right-of-way. Often the protests 
lasted for months, and when they were finally suppressed by government forces 
new ones sprang up in other areas. At their peak, the blockades halted logging 
in half of Sarawak. Although frequently assaulted by armed police, soldiers, and 
company goons, the protesters remained peaceful. In every instance, the actual 
barriers were mere symbols, a few forest saplings bound with rattan. Their 
strength lay in the men, women and children who stood behind them.

     Penan statement issued on February 13, 1987

     "We, the Penan people of the Tutoh, Limbang, and Patah Rivers regions, 
declare: Stop destroying the forest or we will be forced to protect it. The 
forest is our livelihood. We have lived here before any of you outsiders came. 
We fished in clean rivers and hunted in the jungle. We made our sago meat and 
ate the fruit of the trees. Our life was not easy but we lived it contentedly. 
Now the logging companies turn rivers to muddy streams and the jungle into 
devastation. Fish cannot survive in dirty rivers and wild animals will not live 
in devastated forest. You took advantage of our trusting nature and cheated us 
into unfair deals. By your doings you take away our livelihood and threaten our 
very lives. You make our people discontent. We want our ancestral land, the land 
we live off, back. We can use it in a wiser way. When you come to us, come as 
guests with respect.

     We, the representatives of the Penan people, urge you: Stop the destruction 
now. Stop all logging activities in the Limbang, Tutoh, and Patah. Give back to 
us what is properly ours. Save our lives, have respect for our culture. If you 
decide not to heed our request, we will protect our livelihood. We are a 
peace-loving people, but when our very lives are in danger, we will fight back. 
This is our message."
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