THE Berawan and Penan communities of Sarawak, who are battling to keep the land bearing their ancestral graves and heritage sites from falling into the hands of an oil palm plantation, have called out Mulu assemblyman Gerawat Gala for reneging on a promise to help them.

Berawan land rights activist Willie Kajan said Gala promised that all work by plantation company Radiant Lagoon on 4,400ha in the Sg Tutoh Ipoh region would be stopped at once.

Gala made the promise on March 4 at the Miri resident’s office, attended by representatives of the two tribes who shared their grievances with the Parti Pesaka Bumiputera Bersatu rep.

“Where is your promise to get the plantation company to immediately stop the land clearing until all the ancestral grave and heritage sites have been identified and marked out,” Kajan said at a clean energy forum in Kuching.

Heavy machinery is still operating on their land even after the March 4 meeting with Gala, he said. 

The land has been leased out by the state government for oil palm planting and it includes native customary rights territory that the Berawan and Penan claim as theirs.

“When we asked the operators why they were still working, they told us they had not received any instruction to stop. Either Gala is powerless to stop them or his words are useless,” said Kajan, who has a recording of Gala making the pledge.

Radiant Lagoon is also in the spotlight because of its plantation’s proximity to the Mulu National Park, a Unesco World Heritage site. The company said that its plantation does not encroach on the park.

‘The forest is our life’

Batu Bungan’s Penan headman Ukau Lupung said Gala’s failure to honour his word would destroy his people’s future.

“We are not asking for compensation. We just want our land untouched,” Ukau said.

“If there are no more timber, no more animals to hunt, forest produce to gather, then there is little hope for the future of our people.

“The forest is our life.”

Kajan, of Kg Melinau, in February lodged a police report against Radiant Lagoon over the desecration of 300-year-old Berawan and Tering gravesites in the forest.

Swiss environmental group Bruno Manser Fond (BMF) is campaigning for the Berawan and Penan on the international front.

Its executive director, Lukas Straumann, said American environmentalist group Mighty Earth last week put out a “rapid response” alert to multinational companies with a zero-deforestation policy buying palm oil from Double Dynasty, the parent company of Radiant Lagoon.

Straumann said when a rapid response alert is issued, the selling company is obliged to respond to the complaint with an explanation for its buyers within two weeks.

Buyers are obliged to stop buying from the company if it fails to respond to the alert. 

Straumann said BMF is also exerting pressure on United Overseas Bank to recall a US$38 million (RM155 million) loan to Radiant Lagoon, or risk being accused of funding the destruction of rainforests. – March 18, 2019.