We are very happy to learn that the Penan communities of Sarawak's Upper Baram region have won the SUARAM Human Rights Award 2008. The Penan were chosne by the Malaysian human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM - www.suaram.net) among six nominees, together with the now-banned Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF).

For more than two decades, traditional Penan indigenous communities have fought to prevent logging companies from destroying their rainforest world in Sarawak, Malaysia. Neither logging companies nor military nor government officials have been able to persuade or buy off the traditional leaders or headmen, who insist on their people’s “native customary rights” to live in and protect their forest.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Congo, home to the world's second largest tropical forest, launched a review of all timber contracts on Wednesday in an effort to clean up a business rife with corruption and to recoup millions of dollars in lost taxes.

By Aviva Imhof - Special to The Bee

How to generate electricity without selling out the climate is one of the pressing issues facing humanity today. But don't worry; the international hydropower industry says it has the situation covered. It's using the threat of global warming as a pretext for promoting a new generation of big dams in developing countries.

Tokyo-Environmental organizations today condemned the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and four private banks' June 16 decision to provide approximately 5.3 billion dollars in financing for the problematic Sakhalin II oil and gas project in the Russian Far East.[1] JBIC (the Japan government's official export credit agency), Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (Japan), Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd (Japan), Sumitomo Mitsui Bank Corp (Japan) and BNP Paribas (France) have severely violated their environmental policies by financing Sakhalin II, according to the groups.

Pascua, Chile -- Aaron Sanger surveyed the dramatic stretch of Patagonian backcountry that spread beneath him, gazing down at the turbulent Pascua River as it raged through an unsullied landscape of majestic glaciers, snowcapped peaks and temperate rain forests.  

"No more than a handful of people have explored this valley - ever," said Sanger, a Berkeley environmentalist.

RUSSIA- Celebrate this victory with environmentalists and indigenous peoples of Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East: After four years of trying, the Sakhalin Energy company has withdrawn its loan applications from US, UK and European development banks, because it has not met the banks’ environmental requirements.

The Malaysian police will exhume the remains of the late Kelesau Naan who was allegedly murdered.

The Malaysian police will exhume the remains of Kelesau Naan, the late headman of Long Kerong, a Penan village on the upper reaches of the Baram river in Sarawak / East Malaysia. According to the New Straits Times (a newspaper appearing in West Malaysia), Police Commissioner Mohmad Salleh said that the police will apply for a permit to exhume Kelesau's remains so that the cause of his death can be determined.

Indigenous groups remain committed in stopping the Goro Nickel project from going ahead and request that Inco restore the areas it has destroyed by removing its installations and reforesting the area. Indigenous groups are planning naval raids to stop the waste pipe that Goro Nickel is hurriedly laying. Rheebu Nuu successfully stopped Inco from laying it's pipe in Kwe West by building a new village and will now use all available means to stop the new path of the pipe.

It was the case of the Mayan communities of Conejo and Santa Cruz versus the Government Of Belize – and the question was: who really owns the combined 15 acres of land in the Toledo District that those communities occupy? A simple question of ownership, but it requires a complex answer, because the case is built upon what is called customary land tenure. That refers to property rights that the Mayans claims to have before the British occupied Belize.

Thanks to all who wrote letters to the World Bank, urging it to stop financing industrial logging in the Congo, the world's second-largest rainforest. Our letters demanded that the Bank carry out consultations with indigenous "Pygmy" communities throughout the vast rainforest region, and honor their needs and rights regarding any logging plan.

Under pressure, the Bank's Inspection Panel undertook an investigation of the Bank's policies and practices in the Congo. The Panel's report, just released, finds the Bank in violation of many of its own policies and standards.

SAHABAT ALAM MALAYSIA [SAM]
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, MALAYSIA
21, Lintang Delima 15, 11600 Penang, Malaysia
Tel : (6) 04 - 6596930 Fax : (6) 04 - 6596931

PRESS STATEMENT AUG 27, 2007

 SAM would like to call the attention of the Malaysian Government, both at the Federal and Sarawak level on the latest developments surrounding the two blockades set up by the Sarawak native communities in the middle and upper Baram, Miri Division.