For generations, Indigenous communities across Sarawak have governed and cared for vast stretches of forest, not as “protected areas” on paper, but as living territories that sustain their cultures, livelihoods, and identities. These communal forests are not empty wilderness. They are places of farming, hunting, fishing, gathering, ceremony, and history....
Dear friends, On the southern slope of Mount Murud Kecil, a logging road is creeping into clouded leopard habitat and forests rich with Rhizanthes lowii: one of the rarest flowering plants on earth. Logging company Borneoland Timber is steadily advancing towards the native customary territories of the Kenyah and Penan...
A letter from 22 Penan communities in the Magoh and Limbang region is calling for a non-renewal of forest certification and support of their conservation efforts in the area. (Magoh/Sarawak/Malaysia) Twenty-two Penan communities in Sarawak, Malaysia, are urging the state government to halt logging in the Magoh and Limbang regions,...
What: Rapid expansion of native forest logging by Borneoland Timber Resources, moving toward the territory of Long Semiyang — an Indigenous Kenyah village on the Baram River in Sarawak. Where: Long Semiyang is located in the Upper Baram region of Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. When: Borneoland Timber Resources has been operating...
Upper Baram, Sarawak — Penan and Kenyah communities in the Upper Baram region of Sarawak, Malaysia have issued a strong and unified statement opposing any logging activities in their ancestral lands. “We call on the Sarawak Government to adopt a zero-logging policy immediately”, emphasizes Roland Engan, Indigenous peoples rights lawyer....
Indigenous communities in Tatau, Sarawak are calling on global palm oil buyers to investigate a plantation, where they say the company has cleared their customary forests without consent and is now threatening the river system they depend on. Nine Iban longhouse communities along the Sungai Sap river say large areas...
Deforestation in Pahang, Peninsular Malaysia © Albert Bansa / Friends of the Earth A new report by Friends of the Earth UK, RimbaWatch, and Earthsight confirms what we and our partners have been documenting for years: timber certification in Malaysia is failing to protect forests or uphold Indigenous rights. In...
(MIRI, March 24, 2026) – Residents of Sawa Ali are calling for urgent action to stop logging activities by Borneoland Timber Resources (BTR) in Block 24, a community forest reserve that serves as their primary source of livelihood. Sawa Ali Village Head, Ipa Ulai, said the logging operations not only...
By Peter Kallang, Founder of SAVE Rivers This month marks ten years since the Sarawak government formally shelved plans for the Baram Dam, a massive hydropower project that would have flooded 412 square kilometres of native customary lands and displaced some 20,000 people from 30 villages in the Baram River...
As the Sarawak government moves forward with requests for proposals (RFPs) for a new series of cascading hydropower dams across five major river systems, Indigenous leaders and civil society organisations are calling for full participation in decisions that could reshape Sarawak’s rivers and communities for generations. The proposed cascading dam...
