Flodding in Long Tungang_2021-05-27
One of Malaysia's largest timber conglomerates is threatening to silence civil society with legal action. Meanwhile, the
current floods impressively demonstrate the environmental costs of deforestation.
(MIRI / SARAWAK / MALAYSIA) As communities in the north of Sarawak are recovering from devastating floods, some of them
have also been dealt another blow: legal threats from logging giant Samling. For over a year, Kenyah and Penan
communities of the Baram and Limbang rivers have been calling for proper consultations and transparency regarding the
Gerenai and Ravenscourt logging concessions, run by subsidiaries of Malaysian timber giant Samling. Instead of
fulfilling community requests, the company has instead threatened them with legal action.
According to William Tinggang of Long Moh, one of the communities affected by the threatening letters issued by Samling
subsidiaries, “the letters appear to be a blatant attempt to silence communities and human rights defenders voicing
concerns about faulty and inadequate certification procedures.”
Both of the involved concessions have been certified under the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), whose role
is to provide “independent assessment for forest management and chain of custody certification to ensure the sustainable
management” of forests, including proper consultation with local communities. In practice, however, communities
highlight what seem to be grievous discrepancies between the process of obtaining certification and actual practices on
the ground.
The communities who have received the threatening letters from Samling have also lodged official complaints with the
Malaysian Timber Council. “Samling seems to be concerned only about one thing: profiting from extraction. If they were
remotely concerned with following procedure or obtaining the free prior and informed consent of communities, they would
try to arrange for proper consultations instead of sending us threatening letters when we voice our concerns.” said Suya
Ara, Assistant Headman of Long Ajeng, one of the Penan communities affected by Samling’s legal threats.
These threats come at a time when villages in Sarawak are reeling from the devastating impacts of abnormal flooding for
the second time in a year: “we’re suffering from floods and from COVID right now, and they are threatening legal
pressure on top of all of this. They need to take responsibility for their role in all of this,” said Penan leader
Komeok Joe, CEO of KERUAN, a Penan support group.
While it has long been understood that deforestation exacerbates both flooding and drought, logging in Sarawak continues
largely unabated, at the expense of remote communities that rely on forest resources for their survival. Remote
Indigenous communities are now left dealing with legal threats while they start the cleanup and rebuilding process once
again.
The Bruno Manser Fund and The Borneo Project condemn Samling’s legal threats against civil society and ask for
reconsideration of the multinational’s logging concessions on the communities' land. Lukas Straumann, Executive Director
of the Bruno Manser Fund noted: “logging should only take place with the free, prior and informed consent of local
people. Communities must be able to voice their concerns without fearing legal consequences. As long as the freedom of
expression is not guaranteed, there can be no talk of sustainable logging and certificates must be withdrawn.”