Baru speaks during a meeting with the Lun Bawang community on Saturday. — Borneo Post Online pic
KUCHING, Feb 7 — The Lun Bawang community in Lawas is against a proposal to declare a large area in Lawas as the Ulu Trusan Protected Forest (UTPF), said Ba Kelalan assemblyman Baru Bian.
Baru said it has come to the attention of the Lun Bawang community that the government has revived the proposal to declare a large area in Lawas as UTPF.
According to him, the UTPF was first proposed in 2015, but was suspended after over 3,000 people signed a petition which was presented to the late Pehin Sri Adenan Satem, who was the chief minister at that time.
“Interestingly, when I spoke to him (Adenan) about it, he said that he had no idea about the proposal,” he said in a press statement today.
Baru said based on the information that they received, the latest version of the proposal involves an area
totalling about 118,163 hectares (ha) compared to 120,855 ha in the 2015 proposal, impacting villages which are located along the Sarawak-Sabah Link Road (SSLR) alignment.
“At least 36 villages, possibly more, will be affected, involving lands that are clearly native customary rights (NCR) lands. According to our calculation, the farthest portion of the boundary of the proposed UTPF is only 3.9 kilometres, which is at Lg Telingan and the nearest is about 1.2 kilometres at Lg Lidung.
“We estimate that two-thirds of the Lun Bawang people stand to lose their NCR lands that include their ‘Tana Bawang’ or ‘Tana Kenen’ (Pemakai Menua) ‘Amug’ (Temuda) if this proposal goes through. This proposal threatens our very existence as natives of Sarawak.”
Baru said the new proposal has not been published in the Gazette as required under Section 8 of the Forest
Ordinance yet, as was done in 2015.
However, he said the Lun Bawang community at a meeting held on Saturday has resolved to send a petition to the chief minister to strongly object to the proposal.
Baru said the Lun Bawang community is against this proposal because the proposed UTPF will extinguish the NCR lands of a large proportion of the Lun Bawang community, thereby depriving them of their hunting, foraging and fishing lands.
“This will effectively rob them of their livelihood. Many are questioning why the government is targeting their NCR lands. Without our lands, we have nothing. Without our lands we will die. Without our lands we lose our identity as Lun Bawang (People of the land).
“All the villages along the alignment of the Sarawak-Sabah Link Road are affected although these villages are not within the boundary of the proposed UTPF. The question here is — why earmark these areas as proposed Protected Forests when they are clearly land and forests which the Lun Bawangs are dependent upon for their livelihood?
“Further, these areas had already been logged during the last 30 plus years and are still under valid Timber Licences? The SSLR is expected to bring economic growth to this area, and with it, land value is expected to increase.”
Baru claimed that by extinguishing the rights of the people, the government is depriving them of the future benefits the SSLR is expected to bring.
“Section 29 of the Ordinance on ‘Revocation of Forest Reserve and Protected Forest’ is noteworthy in that it provides that upon revocation, ‘such a forest reserve or protected forest or part thereof shall cease to be reserved or protected, but the rights or privileges which have been extinguished therein shall not be revived’.”
He also claimed that once the NCR over an area is extinguished and the area is declared as Protected Forest, the NCR over the land will not be returned if the area is degazetted as Protected Forest in the future.
“The Lun Bawang people will not allow their lands to be taken from them in this manner and eventually alienated to some big corporations later. We are suspicious at this moment of this second attempt to extinguish our rights in view of the fact that this area is expected to greatly benefit economically with the imminent relocation of the capital city of Indonesia to Nusantara.
“We are asking whether the government is deliberately depriving us, the Lun Bawangs of such an opportunity to better our lot.
“I had said this in 2015: Our rallying cry in defending our lands, ‘Tana Kai, Ulun Kai’ (‘Our Land, Our Life’), will be heard all over Sarawak. And we don’t want at the end of the day, ‘Lun Bawang, Iamo Na Bawang’, (we are called ‘People of the Land, but with No Land’).”
He said this cry was heard even more loudly on Saturday afternoon at the meeting, which was attended by some hundreds of landowners and village representatives of the Lun Bawang community and representatives from all the affected villages.
“We will continue to fight for our lands, our heritage and our existence.” — Borneo Post Online