International flagship project sunk by Sarawak forestry agency

Lack of transparency and breakdown in communication cause cancellation of International Tropical Timber Organization’s (ITTO) showcase operation in Malaysian Borneo (MIRI / SARAWAK / MALAYSIA) International donors were stunned last Thursday when, minutes prior to the start of a project meeting in Miri, Malaysia, they learned that the Forest Department...

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A Letter from our Executive Director

Dear Friends, I’ve just returned back to California from Malaysian Borneo, where Fi and I (the two-person staff of The Borneo Project) spent several weeks helping our partners, SAVE Rivers, prepare for a long-awaited trial against timber giant Samling. A few days before the trial was scheduled to start, we...

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UBFA communities launch declaration to protect their forests

Communities from Upper Baram Forest Area welcome steps taken to realize the project, and hand over declaration to Forest Department Sarawak and International Tropical Timber Organization On March 20th in Kuching, Indigenous representatives participated in the Upper Baram Forest Area meeting with the Forest Department Sarawak and a representative from...

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King Charles: be a champion for Sarawak’s forests

Indigenous communities from Sarawak have made an impassioned plea to King Charles III asking for the head of the Commonwealth to lend his support to their campaign to end rainforest destruction. On a visit to the UK last month, community representatives argued that — as the third largest importer of...

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The best way to save forests? Legally recognize Indigenous lands.

Joseph Lee This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here. Recognizing and demarcating Indigenous lands leads to reduced deforestation and increased reforestation. That’s according to a new study that looked at more than 100 Indigenous territories in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest and found that legal recognition...

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We stopped the chop! (for now)

Timber giant Samling has stopped logging and withdrawn its machinery from a key conservation area! Throughout the Covid years we’ve been hard at work with local communities to #StopTheChop. These efforts have pressured Samling to withdraw from several sites on Indigenous territory in the upper Baram River Basin. This shows how our coalition of grassroots organizations with relatively...

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UN: Conservation shouldn’t cost Indigenous lives

brytta / Getty Images via Grist A new report says expanding biodiversity protections are a threat to human rights. This story was originally published by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here. To conserve the planet’s biodiversity, countries around the world have pushed to create protected areas. The United Nations...

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