Nature Alert: Dispute over land reaches boiling point

Saturday, 7 November 2009

Dispute over land reaches boiling point

Saturday November 7, 2009

By STEPHEN THEN

MIRI: A standoff between a group of more than 500 Kenyah minority natives and an oil-palm giant over a land dispute in Long Koyan settlement in Belaga district in central Sarawak has reached boiling point.

The oil-palm company, a subsidiary of a Miri-based land development consortium, bulldozed its way into a plot of land to open up an access road into areas earmarked for oil-palm plantation.

The natives claimed that the area targeted for clearing was their native customary rights (NCR) land, inherited from their ancestors.

The company claimed that it has been given the concession right by the State Land and Survey Department to develop the land.

Over the past two days, workers from the company had ploughed their way through despite desperate attempts by the villagers to stop them.

The natives have lodged police reports against the workers for trespassing on their farms, but they claim that the police are siding with the company and helping to provide security to the workers.

Long Koyan chief Tuai Rumah Nyalang Tahe had to seek help from the Borneo Resources Institute, a community-rights group.

The institute’s executive director Mark Bujang yesterday said the Long Koyan natives were very angry with the company for infringing into their land.

“The company workers had started clearing works despite appeals from the affected villagers.They have lodged numerous police reports, but no action has been taken,” he said.

Bujang said Tahe had also claimed to have been given the runaround by the police.

“Tahe was arrested on July 21 this year when he tried to stop the company’s workers from entering his village. He took away the keys from an excavator and the police arrested him for stealing although he had explained that he was merely trying to stop the bulldozing of his people’s land,” said Bujang.

Bujang urged the police and the state authorities to help the Long Koyan people resolve the matter to prevent the situation from turning into a physical confrontation.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/7/nation/5062556&sec=nation

Hall of Shame for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Palm Oil Industry.

Nothing can prepare one for the sight of the systematic extermination of orangutans by the government of Indonesia.

Look at the photos and news articles on these pages in the context of a statement the President made to the media on 10th December 2007.

“In the last 35 years about 50,000 orangutans are estimated to have been lost as their habitats shrank. If this continues, this majestic creature will likely face extinction by 2050,” President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said at the launch of an orangutan conservation plan at the climate talks in Bali.

“The fate of the orangutan is a subject that goes to the heart of sustainable forests … To save the orangutan we have to save the forest.”

Statements like these are most welcome, but unless backed up by action, such words fall on deaf ears within the Ministry of Forestry....who are busy granting licences to cut down the very forests the President says they should protect!

When you think you are to busy to help, please could you reflect for a moment on .........

The following extract refers to environmental problems in general. I just hope you find it as thought provoking and relevant to orangutans as I have.

"This is such a shocking and unpalatable fact that most people deny it, or they just don't want to think about it. They believe as individuals, they can do little about it, so push it to the back of their minds. But I can't do that.

When something has to be done, we need to do it. It doesn't matter how big the challenge is or how hard the solution; if I know something is wrong, and I am in a position to help, I will do my best to make it right." Duncan Bannatyne, successful British businessman.