The Survival of the Penan Clan

Thursday, 7 April 2011

Bibliography

Ahni. (2008). Penan Mount Blockade Against Interhill Group. Intercontinental Cry. http://intercontinentalcry.org/penan-mount-blockade-against-interhill-group/

BBChome. (2008). TRIBE. UK: http://www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/tribes/penan/index.shtml#top

Kahn, L. H. (2011). Deforestation and emerging diseases. Bulliten of the Atomic Scientist.

http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/laura-h-kahn/deforestation-and-emerging-diseases

Khoo, L. (2011). Bakun Dam expected to generate power this July. MySinchew. http://www.mysinchew.com/node/54755

Research Machines. (2009). Swidden Agriculture. Helicon Publishinghttp://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Swidden+agriculture

Richard B. Lee, R. H. (2001). Economy. In R. H. Richard B. Lee, The Cambridge encyclopedia of hunters and gatherers (p. 314). Cambridge University Press. http://books.google.com.my/books?id=5eEASHGLg3MC&pg=PA314&lpg=PA314&dq=swidden+agriculture+by+penan&source=bl&ots=E-kn-MJ5dn&sig=grhnaZHa1UC02E9PPFejEg6ftEo&hl=en&ei=pZGdTdLFGIWnrAeTxanDBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Survival. (2010). Survival International Report. Survival International. http://assets.survivalinternational.org/documents/373/Serious_Damage_final.pdf

unknown. (2000). the case of the Penan. http://www.cpps.org.my/resource_centre/Bumiputera_Minorities_The_Penan.pdf.

Zelizter, T. (2010). Is Palm Oil Causing Massive Forest Deforestration? The Pam Oil Truth Foundation. http://www.palmoiltruthfoundation.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1859&Itemid=1212

Penan tribes to blockade against loggers and blowpipes- The standoff when the Penan set up blockades to prevent logging companies from accessing the forest for timber and to clear for acacia, eucalyptus, and palm oil plantations, according to news release from the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) (Ahni, 2008). A Penan spokesman has said the blockade will continue until the Sarawak state government recognizes the Penan's land rights and commits to protecting their forest. These blockades came in to being "The blockade comes shortly after Penan women launched a cry of alarm to the international community over cases of sexual abuse and violence by logging company workers in their region (Ahni, 2008). The penan Should protest for their right and also for the misuse o f their motherland and their community by the outsiders

Below are some Blockade made by the Penan tribe

penan tribes should make sure the global world is aware of their situation and also show the alternative to deforestation. The Penan are the wanders of the forest which lived through generations. The penan should show the world their way of resource management

1) The adaptation or growing trees of a degrade area so that more green is there for the survival

2) Request the government for their own land and make sure that there is a anti poaching policy for the outsider, as the Penan need the forest as their home as they grew up I such a land and know how the forest works well. Thus Formal recognition of land ownership rights needs to be implemented by the Penan. This cannot be premised solely on the provisions of the Sarawak Land Code, but has to take into account the recent court decisions as well as currently accepted international practice as adumbrated in((unknown, 2000)

3) The Penan also know medicinal plants and methods for survival in the forest, these methods maybe a small break though in the field of medicine or maybe an integral part in helping in making other medicines. The worth of these medicinal valued plants should be shown by the Penan so that the forest can be saved

4) Practices and survival instincts are the main resources needed to live in a forest, documenting these abilities and portraying them to the world would show the existence of the tribe to the world and also shown the problem that they aare facing, which might get global recognition and help.

the Penan tribe have been struggling through time due to the problems of the dam and loggers. As more time passes by the extinction of this clan in inevitable. The tribe is fighting for t he land but fighting against such a huge opponent such as government, private companies etc is definitely difficult and a difference should be made. thus the best recommendation is for strong NGO to back them up in their dream or struggle to the life of their ancestry heritage

Governments Reasoning Behind the Usage of the Forest

The government plays a vital role in the establishment on the and regulations of the state according to the problems of a state. The Penan tribe have been given many reasoning by the government to watch the destruction of the livelihood in front of their eyes and some of them are:

1) Emergence of new diseases - In 1997, approximately 5 million hectares of tropical forest in Malaysia were slashed and burned to make room for pig farms, and the widespread burning caused a severe haze that blanketed much of the region (Kahn, 2011). The haze coincided with a drought -- a combination of factors believed to have reduced the number of flowering and fruiting trees that the local fruit bat population relied on for survival. With their food sources diminished, the bats sought nourishment in orchards near the pig farms; the pigs in turn ate fruit contaminated with bat urine and saliva, transmitting the virus to the livestock (Kahn, 2011). The Malaysian government was unprepared for this new disease and subsequently bore high costs from the outbreak, including more than 100 human lives lost as well as an economically devastating collapse of its pig-farming industry. Eventually, the new scourge was identified and named: the Nipah virus. But then even the goodness that the forest would bring to the individuals living is huge, as diseases caused can be received anywhere in the world. With the construction of the Bakun Dam, huge reservoirs of water will be there, which will lead to huge more prone places for water born disease like malaria etc. Everything in the world would have to face some or the other kind of problem but it is the governments duty to face theses problems and make sure the people living in the country are not destroyed of their hometown

2) palm oil Development - Malaysia is one of the world’s largest producer of Palm oil and this is only possible due the many varieties of Palm that are available are available to the country. (Zelizter, 2010) Malaysia is covered with densely populated forest and it is in this forest that such large amounts of palm oil can be cultivated (Zelizter, 2010), the only problem with this cultivation is that many of the other trees are destroyed to make room for palm because they might be worth less in the eyes of the government but maybe one of the sources of survival of another tribe in the forest.

3) A quicker approach to attain the Malaysia 2020 and 1 Malaysia - The main focus for the Malaysian government is to attain he Malaysian 2020 perspective which calls for a close to developed Malaysia as possible, thus which mean an increase in the economic social and political factors that cause for the development of the country. Thus to increase the exports of the country , the products development should also be increased and thus the procurement of the raw materials must be increased leading to a larger scale deforestation for wood, oil and other forest related products.

The Sarawak forest after deforestration

1)Sarawak forest before deforestation

2) Sarawak Forest after deforestation

Another Problem faced by the Penan -Deforestration

The sarawak forest is blessed with flora which can be used to made topnotch woodwork and ever since the quality of the wood has be noticed, the loggers have not stopped their hunger. Once the giant trees were removed and the canopy opened, the remaining plant life, bursting towards the sunlight, undergoes some rapid growth which in places has created bushy secondary forest. (BBChome, 2008) Game is harder to spot and track, plants useful to the Penan are less plentiful and vital sago palms less abundant. The removal of large fruiting trees takes away a food source for the Penan and the game (BBChome, 2008). At the same time logging roads give hunting access to non-Penan hunters. The companies carrying out selective logging in Sarawak use bulldozers to clear tracks through the forest and along steep ridges so that specific tree species can be cut and extracted (BBChome, 2008). . It's a bitter irony that whilst building tracks along ridges is seen as good logging practice in the rest of the world, in Sarawak it destroys a lot of sago palm, a staple of the Penan. The trails formed also erode the soil removing the growth factor of the forest.
As Sarawak's natural forests become less productive, the government assigned large area for acacia and palm oil plantation to form an economic wealth factor for the country .Acacia trees can grow 15m in seven years and can re-grow from stumps, so they are very profitable over the long term. This can be seen as deliberate strategy by the government of Sarawak to start their own cultivation by destroying the less economically valuable plant and planting plant that would reap higher income
Sarawak's timber industry is worth around £1 billion a year. Some logging in Sarawak has always been run by commercial imperatives and profit maximization in order to enable the development that will turn Malaysia into a first world country by 2020

This shows that the government of sarawak has only a profit motive ideology as the welfare of the Penan tribes are not been look after upon by even their own government properly

The Bakun Dam Situvation

The Bakun Dam is one of the biggest Dam’s in the world is roughly the size of Singapore (Survival, 2010)and is expected to generate about 300 mega watts of energy ( (Khoo, 2011)). This seems like a flawless plan for the state of Malaysia if seen as the outer shell for achieving 1Malaysia or even the Malaysia 20/20 plan. But what would be the affects of this dam on the people of that region? The Penan tribes have been living in for many centuries in Sarawak, as Survival International indicated in their report that “Creating a dam’s reservoir involves ﬂooding land, potentially submerging crops, forests, houses, and forcing entire communities to be relocated. “ (Survival, 2010)). This shows that the Penan tribe have lost their resources of sustaining their life in this matter, but the point to be argued in this matter is that the Dam is a green renewable source of energy which can produce tons of energy for the survival of Malaysia’s economic growth. So is removing the ability to survival for a few thousands for achieving the greater good, which is a well developed Malaysia can be justified as a shameful act of justice for society. These were some of the events that had happened to the Penan tribe due to the Dam by the Survival International Report((Survival, 2010)

(This article below is directly quoted from the report.)

As we can see that the energy needed is more that what is needed and the destruction that the dam would cause to the so called invisible people of that land is humongous. Just because the World Bank has its money on a project which does not see the future of tribes in that area does not mean that the government should also bat a blinds eye to this situation. How will the government deal with a situation like this or is it the governments plan to get rid of the tribes of nomadic value, so that a state like Sarawak which is full of resources economic abundance can work to its full potential to enrich the country. Whatever may be the answer to that question, the Penan tribe is still hit hard due to the removal of their survival resources which is almost the size of Singapore. What can the Penan do now to get their land back or even further stop the construction of such a catastrophe. Even asking the government for a particular piece of land in the Sarawak forest may not work as the Penan tribes are travelers , they go from one place to another with their swidden cultivation and set camp till some time but if dam is the case then there wont be enough place to move around to and more water borne diseases will arise, the worst of all is the destruction of a main food source of the tribe which is fish. Now, all the Penan people can do is to paint themselves in their patriotic malasysian colors and try appealing to the Supreme court for their voices to be heard.