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Orang Asli cry foul over protracted logging

Fauwaz Abdul Aziz Malaysiakini.com Nov 18, 04 2:49pm

 

 


 

 

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Four villages inhabited by a Semai community of Orang Asli in Sungkai, Perak, are taking proactive measures to prevent loggers from entering their ancestral land to carry out any further work, which they say has polluted the environment and harmed their sources of livelihood.

The villagers also alleged that their religious and cultural beliefs have been trampled on by loggers who have not spared sacred sites such as “graves and holy rocks”.

In a report submitted on Nov 12 to the Sungkai police chief, 330 villagers of Kampung Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula in Jernang (RPS Jernang) said that “as long as the party involved in this issue does not give a response in black and white (to our grievances), we will not allow the loggers to enter.”

“We request your cooperation in monitoring the activities of the loggers as one way of preventing any untoward incidents, such as a clash, from occuring should the loggers remain adamant in entering our ancestral land despite being forbidden from doing so,” they added.

Mat Epen Yoksenggah, one of RPS Jernang’s leaders, said the villagers confronted the loggers as they entered their land and this has on occassion led to heated exchanges.

Despite the risks that such confrontations pose, Epen said the villagers have been forced to such measures because letters sent earlier to several federal and state agencies had not produced any efforts to protect their interests.

“Even the Sungkai police chief who had met with us three days after we had filed the report said he could not do anything as the loggers are licensed to carry out their operations.

“We told him that if that was his position, then the villagers will continue to stand their ground to prevent any more logging, because this is our land and the land of our ancestors,” he said when contacted today.

“Do they think we are so stupid as to stand idly by while these loggers carry away the products of the forests and mountains, as they push aside our graves and crush our sacred stones. From the 26 years of logging, we’ve gotten nothing but sicknesses (from the polluted rivers),” he added.

Verbal directive

In a discussion between villagers, the police and the loggers, on Nov 15, the police gave a verbal directive that the loggers must complete their operations within three months.

“We don’t know if that is merely an empty promise or not,” said Epen.

He said residents of Tidong, Ras, Kejau, and Sat villages who signed the police report had earlier written a ‘protest letter’ listing their grievances to the Orang Asli Affairs Department (JHEOA) head Nordin Mie and chief district officer of the state’s forestry department overlooking southern Perak Salim Ali.

Copies of the letters were also sent to the state environmental department, state forestry department, the Rural Development Ministry, the state government’s executive council, and various other non-governmental agencies.

Health problems

According to activist Rizuan Tempek of Orang Asli advocacy group Sinuai Pai Nanek Sengik, “officials, such as from the forestry department who came with a representative from the logging company to meet with the villagers, seem to side with the loggers and speak on their behalf.”

“The villagers say the logging activities, which began in 1978, have affected their health and livelihood as the rivers of RPS Jernang, which used to be clean and abundant in fish, frogs and turtles and other sources of food, are now polluted and uninhabitable except for small fishes,” he said.

“There aren’t many fishes, frogs and turtles any more. The small fishes that are caught exude a ‘muddy’ smell,” he added.

The rivers, water from which the villagers used for drinking, bathing and washing purposes, have become so muddy and polluted that it was no longer suitable for everyday use, alleged Rizuan.

“Continual use of water from the river has led to many villagers experiencing health problems such as skin irritations and eyesight problems. At least one villager has been said to have lost his ability to see completely as a result of the polluted river.”

Rizuan said that wood and plant resources on which the Semai villagers had long depended on for everyday needs, for housing, traditional and ceremonial purposes, as well as cash commodities, were also becoming sparse as a result of the logging.

Last year, another community of Semai Orang Asli in Perak were threatened with eviction following moves by the state government and a plantation company led by former minister Megat Junid Megat Ayub to plant fruit trees on the Orang Asli’s ancestral land.

As a result of protests from the Kampung Chang Sungai Gepai community, however, the state government announced that the development plans were shelved and have since been placed in cold storage.

Is logging on Orang Asli land against licence regulations?

Fauwaz Abdul Aziz Malaysiakini.com Nov 20, 04 1:21pm

Are loggers in Sungkai, Perak, meeting and fulfilling standards and conditions required by their licence and stipulated by the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC)?

If not, buyers in foreign countries convinced that the timber logged from the area is coming from sustainably managed forests are being duped, as assertions by residents of four villages in Kampung Rancangan Pengumpulan Semula in Jernang (RPS Jernang) seem to suggest.

This was among the questions raised by the Center for Orang Asli Concerns director Colin Nicholas recently when commenting on allegations by 330 residents of four Semai villages that logging operations on their ancestral land has harmed the environment and depleted their sources of livelihood.

The villagers also alleged that their religious and cultural beliefs have been trampled on by loggers who have not spared their sacred sites such as "graves and holy rocks"

According to documents acquired by malaysiakini, the licence held by the contractor to extract logs from 27ha of Jernang’s Bukit Slim required the licensee to fulfill the “Criteria, Indicators and Activities for Sustainable Forest Management” as specified by MTCC.

A check on MTCC’s website revealed that under Principle #3 (Indigenous People’s Rights) of the council’s Criteria and Indicators for Forest Management Certification, timber extraction activities “shall not threaten or diminish, either directly or indirectly, the resources or tenure rights of indigenous people. ”

Under Principle #6 (Environmental Impact), furthermore, forest authorities are urged to “conserve biological diversity and its associated values, water resources, soils and unique and fragile ecosystems and landscapes, and, by so doing, maintain the ecological functions and the integrity of the forest.”

Elsewhere, MTCC stipulates that “sites of cultural, ecological, economic, or religious significance to indigenous people shall be clearly identified with the cooperation of such peoples and clearly recognised and protected...”

Not complied with

Commenting on the apparent disparities between the requirements of MTCC and the actual realities on the ground, Nicholas said it was “obvious that the requirements are not being complied with and the supervising or overseeing of the logging process is not being done.”

“If the loggers have been licensed (by the state forestry department) to carry out their logging operations, then why are so many people protesting against it? The fact that people are getting sick from a river polluted by the logging exercise is reason enough to stop it,” he said when contacted.

If river water and other forest resources could not be accessed for their own sustenance, as the villagers claim, it also indicated that “the supervising and overseeing of the logging operations was not being done” by the state forestry department, said Nicholas.

Nicholas also added that the law in Malaysia as set out in the Aboriginal Peoples’ Act (1954) also guaranteed Orang Asli communities’ right to their own resources.

The villagers had on Nov 12 lodged a police report on the matter highlighting their plight, stating that their intention to continue blocking the entry of logging workers into their ancestral land “as long as the party involved in this issue does not give a response in black and white (to our grievances).”

“We request your cooperation in monitoring the activities of the loggers as one way of preventing any untoward incidents, such as a clash, from occuring should the loggers remain adamant in entering our ancestral land despite being forbidden from doing so,” they told the police chief of Sungkai district.

One village leader, Mat Epen Yonsenggang, said the villagers were forced to take such measures because letters sent to several federal and state agencies had not produced any efforts to protect their interests.