Malaysia

Sri Aman, Sarawak - After the arrest and release of 15 indigenous people in Sarawak on Malaysia Day, another 15 indigenous Iban have been reported arrested in the Pantu District in Sarawak, for the alleged crime of harvesting oil palm f

The logging company Interhill has once again invaded indigenous Penan forests and NCR (native customary rights) lands.

Ba Jawi community sues logging group Samling and the Sarawak state government in order to protect 15,000 hectares of high-conservation-value tropical rainforest

Logging giant threatens to suspend all transport services for locals unless Penan retract sexual abuse allegations

Ministry of Finance excludes Samling Global from the Norwegian Government Pension Fund

OSLO, NORWAY. One of the world's largest institutional investors, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, has sold all its 16 million shares of Malaysian timber giant Samling Global, worth 1.2 million US $, as a consequence of a groundbreaking decision announced today by the Norwegian Ministry of Finance.

Sarawak authorities must act to protect victims and stop colluding with the logging companies

The palm oil industry is aggressively expanding palm oil production for both cooking oil and biofuel. That means destroying millions of acres of forests and small farms and converting them into vast plantations of oil palm. In many countries, and especially in Indonesia and Malaysia, oil palm plantations are forcing forest-dwelling peoples to abandon the forests just ahead of the advancing bulldozers.

Indigenous peoples don’t only suffer from the effects of climate change; in some cases they suffer from the solutions to climate change.

In many parts of Asia, parks—including sanctuaries, totally protected areas, and heritage sites—are found within indigenous peoples’ traditional territories.

Two logging road blockades erected by Penan communities have caused a Malaysian timber giant, Samling, to withdraw its bulldozers from the Penan's rainforests on the upper reaches of the Akah river in Malaysian Borneo.

The blockades had been erected in March 2010 near the villages of Long Sabai and Ba Kerameu at two strategic locations.

Tijah Chopil invented the phrase Sinui Pal Nanuk Sngik (SPNS) -- "New Life One Heart." It signifies that solidarity among Orang Asli will ensure a future for them.

In May, Malaysia's High Court passed a landmark ruling in favor of indigenous peoples. The ruling extended the customary land rights of the native people of Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. Customary land rights for Sarawak's natives will now include not just land immediate to their longhouse communities, but will extend to surrounding areas that include nearby forests, rivers, and streams.

High Court Judge Ian Chin Hon Chong issued the ruling, banning Borneo Paper and Pulp Plantation from logging in the forests around the lban village of Rumah Nor.

Orang Asli are the original people of West Malaysia. Under federal law, they have no ownership rights to their traditional lands, despite having lived in Malaysia centuries longer than other groups.

Bruno Manser, a forty-six year old human rights activist from Basel Switzerland, disappeared in late May of last year in the province of Sarawak, located in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo.

Orang Asli is the collective term for the 19 sub-groups of `first peoples' in Peninsular Malaysia. Numbering 105,000 in 1997, or a mere 0.5 per cent of the Malaysian population, the Orang Asli are largely forest or agriculture based, although several individuals have achieved levels of educational and economic success comparable to those of the dominant population.

Adela Baer's new title on the Orang Asli: Health, Disease and Survival: A Biomedical and Genetic Analysis of the Orang Asli of Malaysia, is a welcome addition to a field that is still plagued by glaring data gaps and misconceptions.

Early in January this year, 75 Temuan families living on the banks of the Selangor River in Malaysia learned that their land was in danger of being submerged by the construction of a dam. The Selangor State Government had already taken the first steps by granting permission to developers to conduct a feasibility study for the project. The dam on the Selangor River is intended to alleviate the severe water shortages that the heavilypopulated and increasingly industrialized Klang Valley has been experiencing over the past few years.

The World Commission on Dams' Process