Extracted from Malaysiakini

 

Logging stops, uncertainty remains
Fauwaz Abdul Aziz

 

Having stopped logging works on what they claim to be their ancestral land, the Orang Asli communities of Kampung Bukit Rok and Kampung Ibam in Bera, Pahang, now await the answer to a larger question: is the land in fact theirs? 

The communities were granted a reprieve following a meeting last Friday between their representatives and the state forestry and land officials, the Department of Orang Asli Affairs (JHEOA), the logging contractor, Bera MP Ismail Sabri Yaakob and senior Bera police officers.

 

The logging operations and alleged encroachment into their ancestral land - about which they protested last week - will be stopped pending the state forestry department’s identification of an alternative logging site. 

“All parties have agreed that logging will be stopped, and that those trees that have already been felled can be brought out of the site,” said Ismail Sabri when contacted.

“The department has been given a month to find an alternative site, while the contractor has been asked to apply for their logging site to be changed. If (action) fails, then further negotiations will be held with the villagers on the possibility of logging in the same area but with compensation.”

The one-month period was also to settle the larger question of who owns the land, as different parties had produced conflicting evidence to back their claims.

Malay Reserve land?

The villagers not only claimed that the 2,023.47 ha site had been inhabited by countless generations of Orang Asli, but also produced documents to prove that the state council had agreed in principle in 1984 for it to be gazetted.

“The only question now is why, since 1984, the state government has not taken the next step of gazetting the land,” said Bukit Rok villager Bob Manolan Mohamad, who is also treasurer of the Peninsular Malaysia Orang Asli Association.

Ismail, however, said that even if it were determined that the land belongs to the villagers, the Aboriginal Peoples Act of 1954 provides for the state, if it so wishes, to revoke or re-acquire Orang Asli land.

“Has the state in fact approved the gazetting of the land? If it did, did it at one point in time cancel the status of the land? This has to be determined,” he said.

In addition, representatives from the neighbouring
village of Batu Papan - who had sub-contracted the logging work - claimed that the land which the Orang Asli alleged as ancestral land had been gazetted as a Malay Reserve.

“This is what the Batu Papan villagers’ applications (under the Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority) scheme were based on, that it had been a Malay Reserve since 1923,” said Ismail.

Ismail noted that, while the Batu Papan villagers had produced documents to back their claims, “Felcra has not announced its (position) on the issue yet”.

 

As such, land and forestry officials have been told to look at their documents and reach a decision as to the status of the land.

At last week’s meeting, the Orang Asli villagers also requested the state government to look into allegations that settlers from Selangor have built five to six houses on their land.

“We told the officials that we had long pressed for the land to be gazetted, but no approval has been forthcoming from the office of the Pahang Menteri Besar. Yet, here is a case where people from outside the state have been given authorisation to settle on our land,” claimed Bukit Rok villager Romani Mohamad.

He said the officials denied giving any such approval and promised to evict settlers and demolish their houses to prevent their return.