By Joseph Tawie
SEBUYAU: A group of villagers have accused the Sarawak forestry department of blatant disregard of their native customary rights (NCR) over their communal forests.
Activists Nicholas Mujah and Numpang Anan Suntai who are helming the group said the department was refusing to suspend the license issued to logging company, Quality Concrete Holding to stop harvesting of timber in their ‘pulau galau’ (communal forest)
“The department has been informed by the land and survey department through a letter that the area is confirmed to be native customary rights land.
“Yet the department does not want to take action against Quality Concrete Holdings, which continues to log trees in the communal forest,” said Mujah, who is the secretary general of Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (Sadia) in a letter of complaint to Suhakam.
“The logging activities have destroyed a large number of our rubber and fruit trees and cash crops,” he said, pointing out that such activities will also disturb their shrines, graveyards and their sources of incomes.
He added that the the logging activities was also polluting the people’s source of drinking water as well as disturbing the habitat of some of the protected animals such as the proboscis monkeys, orang utan, hornbills, deer and peacock.
The area is also the home of some of the rarest species of timber such as belian (iron wood) and selangan batu which fetches up to RM4,000 a tonne.
Five longhouses namely Kampung Entangor, Kg Sungai Ijok, Kg Arus, Kg Tungkah Dayak and Kg Ensika are directly affected by the logging activities.
“All these are clear violations of the rights of the villagers and environmental hazards,” he said, calling on Suhakam to carry out an immediate investigation into the violation of human rights by the forest department and the company.
Longhouse chiefs getting ‘kickbacks’
Meanwhile, Sadia has also received complaints that certain Penghulu and longhouse chiefs had allegedly received ‘kickbacks’ from the company for their cooperation.Read more here
DESTRUCTION OF SEBANGAN & SEBUYAU RAINFORESTS DUE TO LOGGING ACTIVITIES
Taken from Borneo Independent News Service
By Numpang Suntai
Kampung Sebangan, 30th August 2010
1. Introduction
Quality Concrete Holdings Bhd has a license to extract timber issued by the Director of Forest Department, Sarawak. This is for a period of one year effective 20 November 2009. The license covers the bulk of the last of remaining rainforest between Sebangan and Sebuyau rivers.
The areas covered by the license are in the interconnected mountain range starting from Kpg Mensika to Kpg Entanggor in the Bahagian Samarahan and including areas next to Kpg Lunying in the Bahagian Sri Aman. Sadly, the areas covered by the license are the cultivated lands under Native Customary Rights (NCR) Land and Communal Forests reserve (Kampong Galau) for of the Dayak Iban natives in that area. Evidences to authenticate these claims were submitted to the Land & Survey Department, Sarawak on the 15th & 26th July 2010. In addition, logging will cause extensive permanent environmental and social damages to the area.
This report calls for the Director of Forest Department, Sarawak is to immediately withdraw the license to extract timber in the Sebangan & Sebuyau Rainforests.
2. Opposition to Logging
The local Dayak Iban natives oppose the logging in the Sebangan and Sebuyau areas because:
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