(GENEVA/ BERN, SWITZERLAND) Twenty MPs file motion to freeze Malaysian potentate’s assets held by Swiss banks; Attorney General urged to declare the family of Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud a criminal organization. Twenty Swiss MPs have filed a motion in parliament that calls for an immediate freeze of assets held by Swiss...
Research published in 2012 provided a better understanding of tropical deforestation’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Two studies — one published in Science and the other published in Nature Climate Change, concluded that while deforestation now accounts for a lower share of global emissions relative to the late 1990s, it still represents roughly 10...
The Eyes on the Forest report [PDF] finds that APRIL and its suppliers cleared at least 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) of natural forest between 2008 and 2011 in Riau, accounting for 27 percent of all forest loss in the province during the period. Some of the area cleared by APRIL and its...
Penan leaders issue stern warning to loggers. “We will do everything necessary to protect our forests”: Penan leaders from Sarawak’s Middle Baram region (Photo : www.bmf.ch) It could well have been a plot from Joseph Conrad’s novel, Heart of Darkness. Except that, instead of the African Congo, the clashes between...
A new Bruno Manser Fund report exposes the Sarawak state government’s excessive hydropower plans for the Malaysian part of Borneo. Bruno Manser Fund is calling for a moratorium on all dam construction after Bakun and for the withdrawal of foreign consultants from socially and environmentally damaging hydropower plans. For more...
In a petition delivered yesterday to the Chief Minister of Sarawak, the Baram people protested the plans to build the Baram mega-dam. The project would flood half the size of Singapore and displace thousands of Baram residents from their ancestral lands, homes, and farms. Thomas Jalong, President of Indigenous Peoples’ Network...
The High Court recently ruled against a joint petition by Penan and Kelabit people in Limbang to save their forest lands from the greed of Chief Minister Taib’s timber and plantation allies, Samling Global and the Hii family. The judge based his ruling on the failure of the natives of...
The mining activities of 18 companies caused heavy and extensive flooding that hit Samboja, a subdistrict of Kutai Kartanegara, inundating 486 houses. The mining companies have failed to construct settling ponds, repair waste treatment facilities, and normalize the flow of the Seluang and Merdeka rivers which have been filled by...
The Indonesian palm oil firm, PT Suryamas Cipta Perkasa, illegally cleared thousands of hectares of forest in Borneo and is now under investigation from a presidential taskforce for failing to receive mandatory environmental approvals before clearing the land. The investigation is a test to Indonesia’s pledge to better regulate forest clearing...
The German company Fichtner GmbH & Co. KG from Stuttgart has come under international pressure due to their close cooperation with power supplier Sarawak Energy in a controversial dam project in the rainforest of Borneo. The Baram Dam would flood a rainforest area of at least 400km2 and displace 20,000...
