Extracted from Malaysiakini

NGO: Logging operations caused deadly landslide

Tony Thien | Jan 28, 09 11:11am

The landslide in Upper Limbang in northern Sarawak that caused the death of three people and injured seven others is a direct consequence of destructive logging practices, according a Swiss-based NGO, Bruno Manser Fund (BMF).

The landslide is the third in just over a week in Sarawak. On Jan 16, a landslide killed two workers at a petrol station near the city of Miri in northern Sarawak.

Last Wednesday, a landslide severed a section of the Pan-Borneo trunk road near Bintulu, causing hundreds of vehicles to be stranded for hours.

The most recent incident involving three people killed and seven others injured occurred at a timber camp in the Upper Limbang region of Sarawak, BMF said in a statement to Malaysiakini today.
                
It quoted Bernama as saying the dead were identified as two Filipinos and a Malaysian who worked for a local timber company.

“Research by the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) has shown that the landslide took place near Long Sebayang on the upper reaches of the Limbang river,” BMF said.

Logging in the area, which is claimed by the local Penan and Kelabit communities, has been controversial since the mid-1980s when locals set up a number of blockades on logging roads to prevent the timber companies from encroaching into their rainforests, it added.

The Bruno Manser Fund said logging interests in the area used to be closely linked to James Wong, Sarawak's former minister of the environment.

It added: “Logging operations near Long Sebayang are currently being carried out by Lee Ling Timber, a company with its headquarters in Limbang.”

Further upriver, a second company, Samling, extracts timber on a large scale. Both companies have plans to convert large natural forest areas into tree plantations, which is likely to cause further environmental destruction.