Malaysia

 

Malaysian palm oil industry, which produces 40 per cent of the world’s palm oil supply, is growing but, according to labourers and activists interviewed by a Wall Street Journal report, also surrounded with abuses. Migrant workers, especially from Bangladesh and Myanmar, are being brought in terrible conditions by human traffickers as labourers in certain palm oil plantations in Malaysia.

An article from the recently launched book “Gender and Land Tenure in the context of Disaster in Asia”, examines the impact of changing land use and land tenure systems in Sarawak on human rights, livelihoods, and local gender practices. The article studies the Iban community of Kampong Lebor whose customary lands were cleared by companies to establish oil palm plantations.

After two years of blocking all work on the proposed Baram Dam in Sarawak, Malaysia, the indigenous peoples have scored a major victory: the state government has announced a moratorium on the controversial dam and an evaluation of small-scale energy alternatives. The indigenous peoples of Baram however are still concerned due to the status of their native lands which are already gazetted for construction of the dam, and of the on-going logging activities carried out with valid permits.

The construction of three mega dams in Malaysia has displaced tens of thousands of people and forced them into resettlement areas. A stunning video from The Borneo Project shows a rather terrible reality, where current plans to construct twelve additional dams in the region of Sarawak will displace many thousands more.

The recently released book “Money Logging” documents the local politics, international complicity and dedicated resistance in the struggle against the turning of Sarawak's rainforests into a monoculture of oil palms and hydropower reservoirs. Author Lukas Straumann singles out Abdul Taib Mahmud, former governor of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, as the kingpin of this Asian timber mafia, while he shows that Taib’s family—with the complicity of global financial institutions—have profited to the tune of US$15 billion.

 

 WRM information sheets on GE tree research First posted: August 2014 Forest tree species being manipulated: Oil Palm Rubber Aim of genetic manipulation