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The Difficult Balance of Indigenous Peoples and Development
‘Justice for our lost forests’: Shut out of the courts, Eco-Business Special Report: Sarawak's Indigenous tribes take to the stand at mock tribunal to air grievances
A fresh lawsuit, which involves an NGO being sued for defamation due to remarks made against individuals who have allegedly profited from timber logging in the state, has once again put the plight of local communities in the spotlight.
This was an introduction to Samantha Ho’s piece, as published by Eco Business.
It is a well written piece that dove back into history, using a freshly published video by Bruno Manser Fond to support the poignant tales of the Penan tribe in Sarawak. This set up the scene for a mock tribunal organized by Bruno Manser Fond, where the leader of a Penan tribe was put on stage to create some background in a civil lawsuit involving Bruno Manser Fond.
There is no information on the results of the civil lawsuit as of this writing but the strongly titled piece is typical of generalizing indigenous tribes against development.
‘Justice for our lost forests’: Shut out of the courts, Sarawak's Indigenous tribes take to the stand at mock tribunal to air grievances”
Representing The Many Native Tribes in Sarawak Factually
The piece is accurate in detailing the many instances of land conflicts between Sarawak’s indigenous tribes but featuring the Penan tribe, as representing “Sarawak tribes,” weakens the mock tribunal’s show effect.
The problem is that the Penan tribe of Sarawak, make up a small percentage of the native populations of Sarawak and therefore, should not have been claimed as representing Sarawak’s indigenous tribes. According to ResearchGate, the main native populations are made up of people from the Malay, Iban, Bidayuh and Melanau tribes. The Penans fall into the “Others” category.
Minority Rights report on the Dayak community says that “The two biggest ethnic groups within the Dayak community are the Iban (also known as Sea Dayak), making up 30 per cent of the population, and the Bidayuh; others include the Kenyah, Kayan, Kedayan, Murut, Punan, Bisayah, Kelabit, Berawan and Penan.”
This is not to say that the Penans of Sarawak should be discounted as an ethnic tribe due to their low population numbers, but that Samantha Ho should not have made a false claim that “Sarawak’s indigenous tribes” were represented at the mock tribunal.
There is some truth in what she said about Sarawak’s indigenous tribes when she wrote:
Villagers in Long Payau struggle to find decent-paying jobs and are unable to adapt to city life, said Tuo, who adds that the Penan are penalised for their strong stance on forest protection. When the locals return home, they shockingly find their rivers muddied and the forests gone, he said.
Land conflicts remain to this day in Sarawak, between companies and indigenous tribes which Sarawak state is trying to resolve under the Native Customary Rights land code. Establishing the borders of native lands in Sarawak is challenging.
One of the basic rules for establishing native customary land use, has been the clearance of forests by human hands, using machete or axe but not chainsaws or bulldozers.
The Penans, as hunter-gatherers that wandered large areas for sustenance, came into conflict, especially with the Iban tribe, who laid claims to their customary lands for farming, by clearing the forests.
As such, the Sarawak government has favored the Iban claims in the on-going effort to stop the unsustainable practices of Swidden agriculture where open burning to prepare the land for farming is frowned upon.
But Samantha has sensationalized the story on Penans by portraying them as some iconic tribe who wandered vast areas only to return “home’ to find their forests gone. The fact is “home” for the few remaining Penans who remain hunter-gatherers, encroaches upon land that is claimed by other indigenous tribes.
Their “struggles to adapt to city life” is complete nonsense. If there’s any truth in it, it might be that the Penans in her story, were too old or under-educated to find decent paying jobs. Those were the same problems faced by the Ibans who worked as coolies back in the day. If there had to be a positive note to Sarawak’s torrid pace of deforestation in those days, it was that the Ibans found jobs in the timber industry. The harsh coolie jobs endured by tribe members enabled their younger generation to work their way up to become foreign-trained lawyers who argue for their indigenous rights today.
The most noteworthy part of the Ibans history is how so many of them came from coolie families to become owners of smallholder palm oil plantations where they can hire others to work for them.
The best example is the Dayak Oil Palm Planters Assocation (DOPPA) of Sarawak. Well educated and well versed, indigenous farmers represented by the Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association, which includes members from the Iban, Bidayuh and Melanau tribes are a force to be reckoned with as they argue for indigenous rights from foreign powers and within the Malaysian palm oil industry itself.
The success stories of Sarawak’s indigenous tribes fits squarely into the United Nations OCHR with its agenda for “people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership”, with its 17 Goals and 169 targets, is vitally important as it will strongly influence the direction of global and national policies relating to sustainable development for the next 15 years. The 2030 Agenda is unequivocally anchored in human rights. It aims to combat inequalities and discrimination and “leave no one behind”, and contains a strong commitment to the disaggregation of data.
Disaggregated data will paint a better picture of indigenous peoples in Sarawak compared to what Samantha Ho wrote for Bruno Manser Fond.
The plight of the Penans she featured, is no different from the plight of the Sami people, whose nomadic lifestyle conflicts with the development of Europe. A good model for finding the balance between discriminated indigenous people and development, might be the Shared Path in Canada.
This will be the greatest challenge for a sustainable planet where indigenous peoples are featured as guardians of nature but the demands of a booming human population says that planet earth does not have enough land for all of us to live nomadic lives like the Penans of yore.
Published August 2023. CSPO Watch
This was an introduction to Samantha Ho’s piece, as published by Eco Business.
It is a well written piece that dove back into history, using a freshly published video by Bruno Manser Fond to support the poignant tales of the Penan tribe in Sarawak. This set up the scene for a mock tribunal organized by Bruno Manser Fond, where the leader of a Penan tribe was put on stage to create some background in a civil lawsuit involving Bruno Manser Fond.
There is no information on the results of the civil lawsuit as of this writing but the strongly titled piece is typical of generalizing indigenous tribes against development.
‘Justice for our lost forests’: Shut out of the courts, Sarawak's Indigenous tribes take to the stand at mock tribunal to air grievances”
Representing The Many Native Tribes in Sarawak Factually
The piece is accurate in detailing the many instances of land conflicts between Sarawak’s indigenous tribes but featuring the Penan tribe, as representing “Sarawak tribes,” weakens the mock tribunal’s show effect.
The problem is that the Penan tribe of Sarawak, make up a small percentage of the native populations of Sarawak and therefore, should not have been claimed as representing Sarawak’s indigenous tribes. According to ResearchGate, the main native populations are made up of people from the Malay, Iban, Bidayuh and Melanau tribes. The Penans fall into the “Others” category.
Minority Rights report on the Dayak community says that “The two biggest ethnic groups within the Dayak community are the Iban (also known as Sea Dayak), making up 30 per cent of the population, and the Bidayuh; others include the Kenyah, Kayan, Kedayan, Murut, Punan, Bisayah, Kelabit, Berawan and Penan.”
This is not to say that the Penans of Sarawak should be discounted as an ethnic tribe due to their low population numbers, but that Samantha Ho should not have made a false claim that “Sarawak’s indigenous tribes” were represented at the mock tribunal.
There is some truth in what she said about Sarawak’s indigenous tribes when she wrote:
Villagers in Long Payau struggle to find decent-paying jobs and are unable to adapt to city life, said Tuo, who adds that the Penan are penalised for their strong stance on forest protection. When the locals return home, they shockingly find their rivers muddied and the forests gone, he said.
Land conflicts remain to this day in Sarawak, between companies and indigenous tribes which Sarawak state is trying to resolve under the Native Customary Rights land code. Establishing the borders of native lands in Sarawak is challenging.
One of the basic rules for establishing native customary land use, has been the clearance of forests by human hands, using machete or axe but not chainsaws or bulldozers.
The Penans, as hunter-gatherers that wandered large areas for sustenance, came into conflict, especially with the Iban tribe, who laid claims to their customary lands for farming, by clearing the forests.
As such, the Sarawak government has favored the Iban claims in the on-going effort to stop the unsustainable practices of Swidden agriculture where open burning to prepare the land for farming is frowned upon.
But Samantha has sensationalized the story on Penans by portraying them as some iconic tribe who wandered vast areas only to return “home’ to find their forests gone. The fact is “home” for the few remaining Penans who remain hunter-gatherers, encroaches upon land that is claimed by other indigenous tribes.
Their “struggles to adapt to city life” is complete nonsense. If there’s any truth in it, it might be that the Penans in her story, were too old or under-educated to find decent paying jobs. Those were the same problems faced by the Ibans who worked as coolies back in the day. If there had to be a positive note to Sarawak’s torrid pace of deforestation in those days, it was that the Ibans found jobs in the timber industry. The harsh coolie jobs endured by tribe members enabled their younger generation to work their way up to become foreign-trained lawyers who argue for their indigenous rights today.
The most noteworthy part of the Ibans history is how so many of them came from coolie families to become owners of smallholder palm oil plantations where they can hire others to work for them.
The best example is the Dayak Oil Palm Planters Assocation (DOPPA) of Sarawak. Well educated and well versed, indigenous farmers represented by the Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association, which includes members from the Iban, Bidayuh and Melanau tribes are a force to be reckoned with as they argue for indigenous rights from foreign powers and within the Malaysian palm oil industry itself.
The success stories of Sarawak’s indigenous tribes fits squarely into the United Nations OCHR with its agenda for “people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership”, with its 17 Goals and 169 targets, is vitally important as it will strongly influence the direction of global and national policies relating to sustainable development for the next 15 years. The 2030 Agenda is unequivocally anchored in human rights. It aims to combat inequalities and discrimination and “leave no one behind”, and contains a strong commitment to the disaggregation of data.
Disaggregated data will paint a better picture of indigenous peoples in Sarawak compared to what Samantha Ho wrote for Bruno Manser Fond.
The plight of the Penans she featured, is no different from the plight of the Sami people, whose nomadic lifestyle conflicts with the development of Europe. A good model for finding the balance between discriminated indigenous people and development, might be the Shared Path in Canada.
This will be the greatest challenge for a sustainable planet where indigenous peoples are featured as guardians of nature but the demands of a booming human population says that planet earth does not have enough land for all of us to live nomadic lives like the Penans of yore.
Published August 2023. CSPO Watch
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