Logging and oil palm destroying tribe’s forest home
The hunter-gatherer Penan in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, are battling to stop the destruction of their last remaining forests, and their way of life.
The Penan’s land rights are not recognized, and their forests are being cleared for logging, oil palm plantations and hydroelectric dams, robbing them of their means of survival.
The hunter-gatherer Penan live in the rainforests of the interior of Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of the island of Borneo.
Traditionally nomadic, most of the 10-12,000 Penan now live in settled communities, but continue to rely on the forest for their existence. Some still live largely nomadically.
Sarawak was ruled for more than a century as the personal kingdom of the ‘Brooke Rajahs’ after the arrival of Englishman James Brooke in 1839. It was handed over to the British in 1946 and was incorporated into Malaysia in 1963.
The Sarawak state government does not recognize the Penan’s rights to their land. Since the 1970s, it has backed large-scale commercial logging on tribal land across Sarawak.
In 1987, many Penan communities protested against the logging of their land by blockading the roads cut though the forest by the logging companies. More than a hundred Penan were arrested.
The Penan have kept up their resistance, and continue to mount blockades against the companies. Some have managed to prevent the companies from entering their land, but others have seen much of their forest devastated.
Where all of the valuable trees have been cut down, the companies have started to remove the forests completely in order to establish oil palm plantations.
The Sarawak government also plans to build twelve new hydroelectric dams, flooding many villages belonging to Penan and other indigenous people.
Survival is urging the Malaysian authorities to recognize the Penan’s rights to their land, and to halt all logging, oil palm plantations, dam construction and other development on their land without their consent.
Unlike the other indigenous peoples of Sarawak, who grow most of their food, the Penan are hunter-gatherers.
Famous for the silent blowpipes and poison darts they use for hunting, the Penan particularly prize wild pigs.
They also hunt deer and smaller animals, and catch fish in the many rivers that flow through their land.
Sago is the Penan’s traditional staple food, and comes from the core of a small palm tree.
The Penan process it by trampling on it, and leave it in the sun to dry into a powder. They also gather ferns and fruit from the forest.
Many of the more settled Penan have started to plant rice.
In areas where the forests have been cleared for logging and oil palm plantations, it is becoming almost impossible for the Penan to sustain themselves.
