Rainforest Robbery - Made in Malaysia

CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Rainforest robbery - How Sarawak's Chief Minister became a billionaire

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Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear friends, the latest edition of Tong Tana, the BMF newsletter, is now online under: http://www.stop-timber-corruption.org/resources

Please read the compelling account of how Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of the Malaysian state of Sarawak since 1981, became a billionaire and transferred vast sums overseas. The newsletter includes the following chapters:

- Rainforest robbery: How to become a billionaire by logging and corruption
- Samling and the Taibs: collaborators in rainforest destruction
- The Boyert case and the FBI
- The Taibs' Swiss Monaco connection
- Taib's Canadian black money imperium
- Put a Stop to the Rainforest Mafia! - Demands of the Bruno Manser Fund

The newsletter is available in English, French and German. Please help us to highlight the Taib corruption case with anti-corruption and anti-money-laundering authorities around the globe and sign the online petition!

Your BMF team
Please contact us for more information: Bruno Manser Fonds, Socinstrasse 37, 4051 Basel / Switzerland, +41 61 261 94 74
www.bmf.ch, www.stop-timber-corruption.org.
PS: Follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/bmfonds

Sarawak: Blacklisted Illegal-Logging Tycoon Involved In Running Malaysian World Heritage Site

08 December 2010

Every tourist visiting the Gunung Mulu National Park contributes to enriching the Taib and the Yaw families - the main culprits in the destruction of Sarawak's tropical rainforest.

By Bruno Manser Fonds

Corruption scandal over the Gunung Mulu National Park widens as Samling owner Yaw Teck Seng and his family holding are identified as significant shareholders of the Royal Mulu Resort

Yaw Teck Seng, the controlling shareholder of the controversial Samling timber group, holds a significant equity stake in Borsamulu Resorts, a company that manages all the tourism activities in the Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak's UNESCO-listed World Heritage Site. Samling has recently been blacklisted by the Norwegian Government because of its involvement in large-scale illegal logging and environmental destruction in Malaysia and Guyana.

Map of Gunung Mulu National Park

Research by the Bruno Manser Fund has shown that two companies, Sarawak Land and Plieran, who hold a 26% stake in Borsamulu Resorts, are closely related to Samling. Sarawak Land is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Yaw family holding that controls Samling. Plieran is jointly owned by Samling founder Yaw Teck Seng and four children of the Sarawak Chief Minister via two front companies, KBE (Malaysia) and Daya Syukra.

Last week's disclosure that Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has a personal stake in Borsarmulu Resort, a company directed by Taib's sister Raziah and her husband, has provoked a storm of outrage in Sarawak. The new findings mean that every tourist visiting the Gunung Mulu National Park contributes to enriching the Taib and the Yaw families - the main culprits in the destruction of Sarawak's tropical rainforest - while the local Berawan and Penan communities hardly benefit from the conservation area at all.

Berawan community protests against Borsarmulu Resort, the Taib- and Samling-owned management company of the Gunung Mulu National Park.

Corruption must not be allowed to be part of a World Heritage Site.

The Bruno Manser Fund is to lodge a complaint with the UNESCO World Heritage Committee concerning the management and ownership structures of the Gunung Mulu National Park. Corruption must not be allowed to be part of a World Heritage Site. The Bruno Manser Fund is asking the Sarawak state government to hand over the Royal Mulu Resort and the management of the park facilities to the local communities whose native lands have been taken off them for the National Park.