Bruno Manser's Penan Photos Go Online
Unique documentation of the last nomadic rainforest peoples of Southeast Asia
Since 19 April 2008, 1000 of Bruno Manser's rainforest photographs are available to the public on Internet. The pictures
taken by the environmentalist whose attention was focused on protecting the primeval forests uniquely document the
threatened rainforest culture of the Penan in the Malaysian state of Sarawak and his long-standing battle to prevent the
deforestation of these rainforests.
A project team from the Bruno Manser Fonds has worked for three years to professionally preserve, digitalise and compile
an inventory (in three languages, English / French, German) of more than 10,000 photographs from Manser's estate. The
pictures are one of the world's most important sources for the culture of the Penan, one of the last nomadic rainforest
peoples on earth. Of some 10,000 Penan, less than 200 are still living as nomads today. The dramatic and progressive
logging of the rainforest has forced most of them to become settled.
Bruno Manser (1954-2000) lived with a group of Penan in Borneo from 1984 until 1990 and described much of what he
experienced in his Tagebücher aus dem Regenwald [Diaries from the Rainforest]. He never returned from his last trip to
Sarawak and was declared as officially missing and presumed dead in 2005. During his lifetime he was considered as the
most credible protagonist for the preservation of the rainforest.
The launching of the photo archive was accompanied by an official ceremony in which family members and friends of
Manser, the Swiss author Franz Hohler, and a representative of the Basel municipal government participated.
Link to Bruno Manser's pictures:
For more information, please contact:
Bruno Manser Fonds
Heuberg 25
4051 Basel
www.bmf.ch
ENDS