|
|
Penans want hunting
ground excluded from national park
Jul 27, 05 11:34am
The Penans of Long Lubang in Pa'tik, Ulu Baram have asked
the Forestry Department to exclude the territory under native customary rights
land on which they and their ancestors have been hunting for wild animals,
fishing and farming from the proposed Puloang Tau National Park.
Marudi-based Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) research and
field officer Jok Jau told malaysiakini
today that he had been informed that the Penan living there are also worried
about the gazetting of the proposed 50,000-ha national park “as it will mean
extinguishing their native customary rights on the land, even though they may
still be permitted to roam the area for the purpose of hunting, fishing and
collecting timber for their own needs.”
According to Jok Jau, the proposed gazette schedule seems
to suggest that the Forestry Department was not aware of Penans living within
the area, even though field studies by researchers from a foreign university
have clearly indicated contacts with the local Penans.
According to a 1990 census, some 7000 Penans, either
settled or semi-nomadic, can be found in the Upper Sungai Tutoh region in the
Baram and upper Limbang and about 3000 are living near Belaga.
There is another ethnic group with an almost identical
name, Punan, who are semi-nomadic. They number between 1000 and 2000 and live
in the Belaga region.
Malaysiakini learnt that satellite pictures made
available to a Miri-based non-governmental organisation show that logging has
been taking place in or around the proposed national park area.
A large area of upper Baram has been licensed for logging
or tree or oil palm plantation involving the state's big timber-based
conglomerates such as Rimbunan Hijau, Samling, KTS, Shinyang and WTK.
Talk in
Unimas
An American anthropologist Dr J Peter Brosius of the
University of Georgia, USA who has done some fieldwork among the nomadic Penan
in the Magoh River, east of Mulu National Park will be giving a talk on 'Possibilities
for Innovative Community Conservation in Pulaong Tau National Park' in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) today.
His findings will be complemented by fieldwork undertaken
by a PhD student in anthropology from the same university Sarah L Hitcher.
The Sarawak Government has an agreement with the
International Timber Trade Organisation (ITTO) to consider the expansion of the
Puloang Tau National Park to create what is described as a transboundary
protected area that is said to present “a singular opportunity for the state to
provide a new model of conservation.”
Jau Jok said the most pressing problem among the Penan
community is growing scarcity of food which he attributed to increasing logging
and tree plantation activities in forestland close to or within the Penan
grounds.
The other serious problems are schooling for Penan
children and the long delay in processingand issuing identity cards to Penans.
Meanwhile, Sarawak Penan Association chairperson Ajang Kiew
said in a statement today that the government does not seem to be making
serious efforts to help the Penan, the smallest and poorest ethnic group in
Sarawak.
He said for the sake of the Penans' survival, the
government should revoke all provisional leases or licenses issued for large
scale plantations on NCR lands and instead approve their application for a
Penan village forest reserve without delay.