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Extracted from The
Demarcation
exercise on all NCR land, says Suhakam chief
By Edward
Subeng Stephen
KANOWIT The demarcation of all
native customary rights (NCR) land m the State is a very important process and an issue that the Malaysian Commission for Human Rights (Suhakam) is
looking into seriously.
Its state
chairman Dr Mohammad Hirman Ritom Abdullah said if the government could come up
with the exercise, it would then be possible to identify between state and NCR
land.
“Many problems
and conflicts arise due to the absence of such clear demarcation or boundary,”
he told Bemama after a dialogue session with about 200 participants of a Suhakam awareness and education programme-cum-dialogue
session at the Kanowit District Office Hall here yesterday. He said for
instance, NCR landowners had regularly complained to the commission of
encroachments into their land by loggers and oil palm and now forest-
plantations.
“To me the
encroachment happens basically because of one thing … there is no clear cut
demarcation to decide which are state and which are
NCR land.”
He said under
the State Land Code all land without any title were legally state land. Thus
the government had every right to issue a lease for forest concession (logging
operations) and oil palm and forest plantations, he added.
(The Code defines NCR land as those which had been farmed in 1958 and
aerial maps of the state taken within the period will provide the evidence of
occupation and cultivation.)
But he said in
giving the lease, it had left it to the licensees to differentiate between
state and NCR land.
“Of course the
licensees, being businessmen will want to take the short cut. They will cut the
nearest big trees even if they happened to be within NCR land”
Dr Hirman was
glad to note that the State government was now aware of this need and was
already moving toward the direction although it would take a very long time to
accomplish.
“We can see
that its policy is now to survey those areas earmarked for development and this
is a good start. Suhakam is suggesting that perimeter survey initially can be
carried out before going into sub-division at a later stage for the issuance of
individual titles.”
“In our
numerous meetings with NCR landowners regarding the encroachment problems, they
had said they were not actually out to make things difficult for the developers
but merely wanted their rights being recognised. They want paper recognition
through the land titles.”
Meanwhile, he
said among the Penan people too, there had been groups out to stake claim on
their NCR land and were complaining to Suhakam of similar encroachment
problems.
“Unlike the
other indigenous communities in the State, they do not do shifting cultivation.
As such they do not have any NCR land in the sense other communities like the
Ibans, Orang Ulu, Bidayuh and others have.”
“Until very
recently, they have been basically relying on the forest for total survival ... they hunt, fish and collect jungle produces and thus to them the whole
forest is their estates.” Dr Hirman said as such their claims for NCR
landowners were impractical. — Bernama