This article was originally published in Malaysiakini.
The sound of a forest tree being felled tugs at some primal place of fear in our bodies – the thunder of a trunk losing its structural integrity, the ripping of vines and branches, then an eerie silent millisecond before its full weight hits the forest floor with seismic intensity. “It’s the sound of death,” remarked Ipa Lian, elder to the Indigenous Kenyah family who ran the jungle homestay from where we witnessed the tree’s killing.
I awoke that morning to the sounds of chainsaws. Bleary-eyed, I stumbled out from my bunk to the mechanical roar closing in from two directions, and an acute sense of doom. No sooner had I reached the veranda of my jungle lodge than a sickening crack rang out to my right and my stomach lurched. This was the first of such shocks to me, a visitor to otherwise-idyllic Long Urun in the upper reaches of the Belaga River in Sarawak, Malaysia. But for full-time village residents like Ipa, it’s a sensation they’ve grown too familiar with. And as the day wore on, it’s one even I began to tune out.
I was drawn to visit the village of Long Urun after stumbling upon an Instagram page advertising Ipa’s family homestay – a meticulously designed forest lodge overlooking a clear flowing river, surrounded by lush trees and flowers. But the village also stands sentinel at the frontiers of the Urun Plantation, a palm oil outfit spanning more than 10,000 hectares in Malaysian Borneo’s largest state. With just a slight turn of the gaze, the picturesque rainforest scene from the house balcony quickly gives way to devastation.
[GIF] Natural forest next to a clear-cut area in the Long Urun Plantation. The Borneo Project.
Even as a longtime visitor to Sarawak’s forests, where logging has run rampant for more than half a century, I was unprepared for the ugly destruction of Urun. A massive iron-red wound, scabby around the edges with juvenile oil palm canopies not yet wide enough to shade the exposed soil. Sing Hen Chan, the company that owns Urun Plantation from nearly 900 miles away in Malaysia’s capital, proudly advertises that all its plantations are certified “sustainable.” One look at the razed landscape tells you all you need to know about what that really means.
The Urun Plantation holds certification under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) standard, which supposedly guarantees that no new deforestation has occurred after December 2019. However, publicly available satellite data tells a different story: deforestation has intensified over the past 12 months. From an aerial perspective, it seems the company is clearing land at breakneck speed, as if racing to stay ahead of scrutiny.
Planet satellite imagery via Global Forest Watch shows deforestation spreading from the Urun Plantation throughout 2024.
Malaysia claimed back in 2018 that it had halted all new deforestation for oil palm expansion – a promise reiterated by Deputy Prime Minister Fadillah Yusof in 2023. Ipa told me that the plantation has maintained its own zero-deforestation claim – he was told by a company representative that the trees being felled for oil palm are industrial timber, planted by the previous concession holder decades ago, and therefore not in fact “new deforestation.”
But this claim of “no new deforestation” falls apart under scrutiny. Even if some of the felled trees were indeed planted decades ago, that does not account for the many mature native trees left behind during the original selective logging, nor the thriving ecosystem that has since emerged. Clear-cutting these secondary forests for oil palm is deforestation by any logical measure – it obliterates native flora, displaces wildlife, and destroys the resources that local communities depend on. The Urun Plantation’s ongoing clearing isn’t just a technicality to skirt Malaysia’s deforestation pledges; it’s a devastating transformation of biodiverse forests into sterile monocultures.
[GIF] Trees being felled in the Long Urun Plantation. The Borneo Project.
Ipa and his family have spent the last few years trying to slow the steady march of forest conversion, as the Urun Plantation has eaten ever closer to their homes and temuda (traditional farmlands). First granted a provisional lease (PL) by the state government to plant oil palm in 1997, Urun Plantation managers have encroached on the ancestral lands of Belaga’s Indigenous Kenyah and Penan communities for more than two and a half decades. The plantation has wielded its state-backed license like a weapon, repeatedly telling villagers that the land belongs to the company and that their continued presence is permitted only by its “good will.”
Rallying neighbors, demanding access to documents that should already be publicly available, and desperately trying to protect their ancestral land from continued encroachment has come at a steep cost for Ipa’s family. Another family member, who wished not to be named for fear of retaliation, managed to convince community leaders that their land was worth fighting for – meeting with them one by one to appeal to their shared heritage and the need to protect the last vestiges of their ancestors’ territory. The village heads agreed to sign a joint letter to the company and local government, demanding their land be excised from the plantation’s license. But just a few months later, most of those same leaders quietly signed a retraction, which many believe was coerced through promises of money or jobs. When confronted, one of these leaders allegedly said, “be grateful that the company didn’t chase you from your home, they have been very nice to you, letting you stay here.”
As of December 2024, a petition to “Save Ulu Belaga Forest” had received nearly 3,000 signatures. Screen capture from Change.org.
As a last-ditch effort, concerned community members started an online petition to “Save the Ulu Belaga Forest”. And just as hundreds of supportive signatures turned into thousands, the threats began to pour in. Family members who work as contractors for the plantation were allegedly called in to company meetings where they were warned to keep their relatives “in line”. A friend whose family runs a local grocery store frequented by plantation workers was also allegedly threatened by a company representative with shut-down if they continued to support the petition. And these tactics worked – the petitioners eventually removed their social media posts and did precisely what the company had demanded – they shut up.
This combination of environmental degradation and corporate hostility leaves the community in a precarious position. Ipa told us of one neighbor who had traded his temuda to the company for the promise of a job for his son – a bitter reminder of how economic insecurity in Sarawak’s rural areas too often drives desperate decisions. And with little to no access to documents or legal recourse, Ipa’s family feels trapped, unsure how to proceed when fellow community members feel hopeless.
“They don’t know their rights,” Ipa’s grandchild explained. “It’s not just brainwashing, it’s also a lack of information. The company says it’s their land because they have a license, but the people don’t see that the land actually belongs to them and their ancestors.” While some community members have begun to question the Urun Plantation’s authority, others remain resigned or fearful of retaliation. They admitted to me, “it’s not easy to stand up when the risks feel so personal.”
An aerial view of the Eastern edge of Urun Plantation. The Borneo Project.
Since my visit, a small coalition of villagers have begun a road blockade – a courageous action to physically block entry into the plantation using a homemade fence and, indeed, their own bodies. The blockade seems to have finally caught the attention of Urun Plantation and its parent company Sin Heng Chan, after Long Urun’s government representative, Senator Abun Sui, stepped up to escalate the issue publicly on December 28th. The senator has called on the Sarawak government and its Department of Land and Survey to formally halt the plantation’s deforestation activities. It remains to be seen what, if any, response the villagers will receive.
But without swift intervention from the Sarawak government, the logging I witnessed that first morning in Long Urun (and every morning of my visit) won’t be slowing down any time soon. Ipa told me that plantation managers have promised to continue their steady march into the community’s remaining forests, claiming it as their rightful property under the provisional lease. Every tree-fall I witnessed marked one step closer to the Urun Plantation closing in around Ipa’s home.
A video posted on Long Urun government representative Abun Sui’s Facebook page shows village residents gathered in front of a blockade, preventing company access to Urun Plantation. Senator Abun Sui Anyit.
Malaysia boasts a more than 55% forest cover rate – a statistic that seems impressive until one realizes these monoculture plantations contribute a significant portion of such “forest” cover. In reality, a mere 10% of Sarawak’s primary forest cover remains untouched by logging or conversion to industrial plantations. These plantations, like Urun, are little more than ecological deserts. Beneath the green canopy of mature oil palms lie sterile wastelands incapable of supporting the biodiversity that once thrived in the area’s natural forests.
The practice of converting secondary forests into plantations is particularly alarming. These areas, while previously disturbed by selective logging or planted timber, have recovered into biodiverse and healthy ecosystems over decades. Razing now-healthy natural forests because they were partially damaged once upon a time is not only a short-sighted policy, but a willful misrepresentation of their ecological value. This practice flouts international trade agreements like the European Union’s anti-Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), and is a clear example of why activists have been calling for Sarawak to be classified as a high-risk region under EUDR rules.
The stakes are enormous. With so little primary forest left, losing Sarawak’s remaining secondary forests would be catastrophic for wildlife, local communities, and indeed the global climate movement. This isn’t just a local issue – the exploitation that Ipa’s community and their forests are facing is a warning to all of us.
Batu Melintang, a waterfall formation on the Belaga River. The Borneo Project.
The time I spent with Ipa and his family wasn’t all doom and gloom – when the chainsaws powered down every evening, their cacophony was replaced by the calm din of cicadas peppered with bird calls. My hosts took me on an afternoon picnic to Batu Melintang, a stunning waterfall up the Belaga river that looked to me like a scene straight out of Jurassic Park. We swam and fished in the clear running water, feasted, and relaxed on the riverbank. One could be forgiven for forgetting that we sat just a few kilometers away from where rainforest had been razed to bare soil.
But as we reloaded our canoe to head back downriver, Ipa shattered the peace with his sober reminder: “Everything you see here is within the plantation. This is what we need to protect; not just for ourselves but for our whole community.”
JESSICA MERRIMAN is the project and campaign coordinator for the Borneo Project.