Malaysia's Penan mount anti-logging blockade: activists

Yahoo News 31 Jul 09;

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Dozens of indigenous Penan tribespeople armed with spears and blowpipes have set up roadblocks in Malaysian Borneo to stop logging firms from encroaching on their territory, activists said Friday.

The Penan people, some of whom are nomadic hunter-gatherers, have been resisting deforestation of their ancestral land since the 1980s when Swiss environmentalist Bruno Manser championed their cause.

Indigenous rights group Survival International said a group of Penan were making a new stand by mounting roadblocks across tracks cut by Malaysian timber firms that intrude deep into the forest.

The group said once the valuable trees have been felled the companies clear the land completely for oil palm plantations, leading to water pollution and loss of wildlife.

"The logging and oil palm companies are robbing the Penan not just of their forests but of their food and water," Survival International's director Stephen Corry said in a statement.

"It is essential that the Malaysian government recognizes the Penan's rights to their land and stops allowing the companies to take everything in sight."

Jok Jau Evong, field officer for Friends of the Earth in Sarawak state, said two blockades had been erected in recent months, including one in the remote Long Daloh region that is still being manned by some 120 tribespeople.

"They are armed with blowpipes, their traditional hunting weapon. They do not want logging to be carried out in their forest reserve," he told AFP.

"The Penans put up the blockade as a last resort after talks with the logging company failed," he said, adding that the firms had suspended their activities but that there were doubts that agreement would hold.

"If the Penans lose their forest reserve, there is no way they can survive," said the campaigner, who recently returned from the region.

"When I visited the two Penan areas, I felt very sad. There is a lack of food, especially for the children. Their lives are getting worse due to the increased logging activities," Jok said.

The Penan people are among Malaysia's poorest and number just 12,000 out of the two million people in Sarawak, on Borneo island.

Jok said only around 400 Penan were still living a fully nomadic lifestyle, while many others have settled in villages and towns.

The plight of the Penan was made famous in the 1990s by Manser, who waged a crusade to protect their way of life and fend off the loggers, before vanishing in mysterious circumstances in 2000.