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FEATURE - Forest-Dwellers Count Cost of
BAKUN,
Eight
years after the government forced thousands of tribal people from their homes
in the jungles of
"It's
tough to make a living here," said Okang Lepun, a Kenyah tribesman and
father of seven who lives in the dusty resettlement camp of Sungai Asap, 30 km
away from the dam wall.
The
45-year-old is one of the lucky ones. He earns an income from selling
vegetables to the dam's construction workers.
But he,
too, would prefer to have his old life back.
"Over
here, you have to buy everything -- rice, meat, fish. There's no hunting
ground, there's no river to fish," he said. "We even have to pay for
water and electricity."
Large
tracts of rainforests, where the Kenyah, Kayan and Penan people once lived,
have been cleared to make way for the Bakun dam, which is set to flood an area
the size of
To peer
into the cleared land slated to be flooded and see the dam wall, visitors must
drive for half an hour along a bumpy logging trail until they reach a security
post.
Inside,
lines of dump trucks rumble along dirt roads, hauling boulders up steep slopes to
feed construction of the 220-metre high rockfill dam on the Balui river in
central
Some 16
million cubic metres of rock will be used to build the Bakun dam, one of
"The
dam wall is now about 190 to 195 metres high, and should reach its full height
in six months. Work is progressing well," said a source at one of the
firms building the dam.
Strangers in their own land
But a
decade later, the much-delayed project is still up to four years away from
completion.
There
is still no major customer lined up to take a slice of the 2,400 megawatts of
power the dam will be capable of generating and some of the local tribal people
feel let down.
Indigenous
people from the area account for only five percent of the project's total
workforce of over 2,000, made up of mostly Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and
Chinese.
Displaced
families -- about 11,000 people in all -- received 1.2 hectares (three acres)
each under the resettlement deal.
Some
say the land is not enough, too far away or infertile.
"We
are used to cultivating rice, but we can't do that here as the land is not
suitable," said Nyurang Ului, a Kenyah headman, sipping tea in a
traditional
Ului,
70, is grateful for closer schools and clinics since the move, but he is
worried about the future awaiting the small children capering along the
longhouse's communal verandah.
"Five
years from now, life will be even more difficult. Some may return to the old
place," he said, adding that many had exhausted their compensation paid
for abandoned ancestral land.
Several
years ago, about 400 people moved back to their ancestral land above the Bakun
dam site, joining many others who had refused to leave the forests, according
to environmental group Friends of the Earth Malaysia.
Government promises a better
future
Sarawak
Land Development Minister James Masing, formerly chairman of Bakun
resettlement
committee, said it was just a matter of time until people adjusted.
"If
you look at five to 10 years down the road from today, they will be in a better
position. There are better education and better facilities here," he told
Reuters.
Last
month, a delegation from the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia visited Sungai
Asap and found that the absence of documentation, such as birth certificates
and identity cards, had created bureaucratic headaches for the relocated tribal
people.
"Without
documentation they are not only denied the right to modern health care,
education and land title, but risk arrest and detention as illegals," said
delegation leader
Bakun
was built with the promise of a new era of investment, industrialisation and
jobs for the young people of
When
completed, its reservoir will cover 695 square kilometres (268 sq mile) and
power eight turbines. But its owner, the federal government, has yet to find a
major buyer for its power.
The
government could either approve a power-guzzling aluminium smelter plant in
Environmentalists
say the option to lay cables would be expensive, fraught with technical
uncertainties and could raise sovereignty issues if they passed through
Indonesian waters.
In any
case, the peninsula currently has a glut of power.
State-controlled
utility Sarawak Enterprise Corp said this month it planned to build a 900-
megawatt dam in Murum, 40 km upstream of Bakun and home to thousands of Penans,
a tribe of forest-dwellers who traditionally hunt with blow-pipes.
"The
Penans there will face the same fate as us, if not worse. They can only survive
in the forest," said Lepun, the Kenyah tribesman turned vegetable-seller.
Story
by Syed Azman
REUTERS
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