Anti-logging enforcement poor in Sarawak

October 26, 2009
Star

KUALA LUMPUR: Enforcement activities to prevent illegal logging, unauthorised settlement and other offences are lax in Sarawak, revealed the Auditor-General’s Report 2008.

It found that between 2006 and last year, 668 offences were detected, of which 558 were illegal logging.

Between 2006 and 2008, the audit found 94,008sq metres of forest were illegally logged, yielding 272,588 timber logs costing RM2.3mil. In 2006, only 29,179 logs were taken.

“Audit analysis on illegal logging and other offences found that the numbers continued to increase year after year,” it said.

However, the report also found that the state forestry department faced manpower shortage.

It said that out of 88 rangers, only 48 were able to carry out enforcement work. “The rest have not been supplied with safety equipment such as firearms and training in enforcement and security,” it added. It also said the target to achieve at least six million hectares of permanent forest reserve and one million hectares of fully protected forest in Sarawak would not be met unless the state government gazetted forest areas that need to be replaced following logging activities.

Iban detained over anti-logging blockade

24 October 2009

KAPIT - Malaysian police said Saturday they had arrested a native leader who set up roadblocks in Borneo to stop a logging firm from encroaching on their ancestral land.

Ondie Jugah, 55, from the Iban indigenous group, was among a group of 10 people who have mounted a blockade since early this week in the interior of eastern Sarawak state, on Borneo island.

Police said Ondie was detained late Friday after he refused to remove the blockade, following complaints filed by the logging company.

"We directed him to open up the road but he refused, so we have to take him back to facilitate investigation," a senior police official from the local Kapit district, who did not want to be named, told AFP.

Police said Ondie was expected to be released later Saturday after questioning.

Ondie's son, Anthony, urged the police to release his father, saying they were merely protecting their home.

"They (the logging company) want to destroy our land and did not want to compensate us," the 29-year-old told AFP.

Nicholas Mujah, secretary general of indigenous rights group Sarawak Dayak Iban Association, condemned the arrest as a form of "harassment" of the vulnerable group and demanded the authorities respect native land rights.

The native Iban people are the largest indigenous group in Sarawak, making up almost half of the state's two million population. Other indigenous groups include Kenyah, Kayan and about 10,000 Penan people.

The Penan, some of whom are nomadic hunter-gatherers, have complained that their way of life is under threat from extensive logging of their traditional hunting grounds, as well as the spread of palm oil and timber plantations. - AFP

Source: http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/28063/84/