Agriculture, Logging Industry and Land Usage in Sarawak

Sarawak's rainforests have been gradually depleted by the demand driven by the logging industry and the following introduction of palm oil plantations. Many of Sarawak's rural communities have felt changes affected by the economic activity of these industries. Peaceful protests and timber blockades between native communities and logging companies are common, often resulting in preventive police action.

The Penan, Borneo's nomadic hunter gatherers have been most affected by these changes, complaining of illness through polluted rivers, game depletion resulting in widespread hunger and loss of traditional medicines and forest products. Their resistance to logging companies culminated in a series of protests and timber blockades in the 1990s, of which many were dismantled by the Police, within the remit of the Law. The Penan claim that their rights are not respected by the State nor by logging companies. Another example, the native customary rights court case of Rumah Nor in the Kemena Basin gave rural communities engaged in subsistence farming hope for continued communal use of land reserves. Although the Court of Appeal ruled against Rumah Nor on the grounds that they had not produced sufficient evidence for their claim, it nevertheless upheld the principles stated by the lower court.

These principles are the basis of not only Rumah Nor's claim, but of the claims of all Sarawak's native communities, namely:

(i) that native customary rights are NOT created by legislation, although they can be extinguished by legislation, on condition of adequate compensation.

(ii) that these communities have a territory including forest reserves and rivers, and farmland, including land under fallow.

Thus, although the Court of Appeal ruled against Rumah Nor's specific claims, it upheld the lower court's ruling in favour of Rumah Nor with regard to the general principles. In this sense, it represents a significant blow to the state's claims that native customary rights comprise only those rights recognised by the state through its legislation.