Extracted from Malaysiakini

 

Logging 'legal', land status in dispute
Fauwaz Abdul Aziz

 

Behind reports of ‘illegal’ logging on land inhabited by the Orang Asli in Bera, Pahang, is a more chronic problem that haunts the indigenous community - the state’s alleged failure to recognise and protect their ancestral land.

 

Press reports yesterday highlighted a protest on Sunday by the Semelai communities of Kampung Bukit Rok and Kampung Ibam, about 300 of whom had camped at the only entry point leading to the site where nearly 400 tonnes of timber have allegedly been logged.

Claiming to have lived off their ancestral land - recorded by the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA) to measure 2,023.47 ha - for countless generations, they alleged that loggers had encroached on at least 69.8 ha of the area.

 

Trees and other resources on which they had traditionally depended, as well as graveyards and other sacred sites, were infringed upon and violated, they claimed.

Inquiries led to the discovery that the logging contractor has been issued permits by the state forestry department to log an estimated 1,000 tonnes of timber from the site.

According to the New Straits Times report, the company denied any wrongdoing and said checks could be made on the validity of its licence at the department as well as the state land office.

 

Villager Bob Manolan, however, alleged that 202 ha of the land had actually been granted by the state authorities to ‘outsiders’ - villagers from neighbouring Bukit Papan - who in turn sub-contracted the logging work to the company.

These villagers have been given the land for settlement under the Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority scheme, claimed Bob who is also treasurer of the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association.

 

The Semelai have approached the office of the Pahang Menteri Besar, JHEOA and Human Rights Commission of Malaysia, in addition to filing two police reports at the Bera district police station in order to halt the logging activities and resolve the land dispute.

More than a year has passed without any action, claimed Bob.

“Without any other avenue, the villagers had to resort to this,” he said when explaining Sunday’s demonstration.

“We know that the state government and JHEOA are entitled to issue land titles, even when it concerns Orang Asli land. But they’ve done this without even consulting the Orang Asli, without even knowing what is on the land (that the Orang Asli depend on),” he added.

Core issue

 

Centre for Orang Asli Concerns director Colin Nicholas said the issue at Bera, triggered by the logging, remains that of dispute over land.

“Land would be lost eventually. Logging is only the first sign of it,” he said.

The victimisation of Orang Asli, said Nicholas, whether by state or private entities, derives from the authorities’ failure to protect the ancestral land.

“Because their land rights are not recognised, (the state authorities) are allowing logs to be taken from the area. The government is not seeing it as Orang Asli ancestral land even though the areas are marked,” he added.

“It’s the responsibility of the state government to protect the land by gazetting it, titling it or securing the area. Instead of doing that, they treat the land as state possession and give it to other people.

“It’s negligence on the part of the state not to gazette or protect Orang Asli land. In the end, the state makes the Orang Asli victims of its negligence.”

Last year, the Rural and Rural and Regional Development Ministry revealed that more than half of the 50,008 ha of land in Peninsular Malaysia approved as Orang Asli reserve land has yet to be gazetted.

While many applications for gazetting have been shelved - some for over three decades - Orang Asli land can and has been de-gazetted for state and commercial purposes.


Photos courtesy of Colin Nicholas