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...
Miri, Sarawak — Indigenous community representatives in Sarawak have expressed concern regarding the confiscation of timber harvested for the construction of a family home, while destructive large-scale logging activities continue to be permitted. “We harvested timber for personal, non-commercial use to build our family house on our ancestral land”, says Mutang Tuo, resident of...
Community leaders in Belaga are calling for a formal revenue-sharing mechanism that would ensure Indigenous communities directly benefit from the electricity generated by the Bakun Hydropower Project. The proposal was advanced through a working paper prepared by the Balui Lake Native Association (BLNA), chaired by Pemanca Tony Kulleh. The paper...
UPOV, the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, is a global system of plant breeders’ rights. It gives legal monopoly rights to companies or institutions that develop “new” plant varieties. In Sarawak and across Malaysia, many Indigenous communities strongly oppose joining or aligning national law with...
Penan Community of Sawa Ali Forces Temporary Stop to Borneoland Timber Resources’ Logging Activities Miri, Sarawak — Logging operations by Borneoland Timber Resources (“Borneoland”) in the highly contested Upper Baram region have been temporarily halted. This marks a significant victory for the Indigenous Penan community of Sawa Ali, who have steadfastly resisted...
