Indigenous communities in the Baram region of Sarawak have long complained of the timber company Samling encroaching on their lands. Communities have repeatedly reported that the company has ignored their rights, disregarded the requirements of the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), and buried legitimate complaints under a layer of corporate indifference. This remote region holds the largest expanse of unprotected primary forest in the state — forests that communities rely on for their survival. In 2020, we at The Borneo Project formed a coalition with local communities and civil society to launch Stop the Chop, a David and Goliath campaign against one of the largest logging companies in Malaysia.
Our coalition consisted of remote Indigenous communities, local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) SAVE Rivers and KERUAN Organisation, and international advocacy groups Bruno Manser Fund and The Borneo Project. We took this fight to the national timber certification body, the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC), the international accreditor Programme for the Endorestment of Forest Certification (PEFC), Samling’s buyers, and the media. Together, we painstakingly compiled a 100-page dossier detailing years of broken promises and regulatory failures. When Samling tried to muzzle local civil society organization SAVE Rivers with a defamation suit, the group stood firm for two years. The legal threats backfired spectacularly, drawing considerably more attention to community claims than there had previously been.
Resistance took many forms. On the ground, communities erected blockades, sent letters to the company, contacted their local government representatives, and formed new action committees. Tens of thousands of people around the world signed petitions, crowdfunded campaigns, and flooded the Samling chief executive’s inbox, ruffling some very wealthy feathers. The case drew condemnation from two United Nations Special Rapporteurs and more than 100 local and international organizations joined the call for an end to the legal harassment. The logging company withdrew the case on the eve of trial.
And now, nearly five years later, we are celebrating victory. Samling has retreated from the Baram area. Deforestation alerts on Global Forest Watch have gradually vanished. And on the national certification list, only three of their once-sprawling natural forest concessions remain. Without this certification, they cannot operate. The Gerenai concession, where so many of the grievances against Samling emerged, is no longer certified. A document discovered on Samling’s website from July 2024 says “the company has ceased sourcing of wood/logs from natural forest and shifted all its wood/logs input to that sourced from its own planted forest”.
But the communities don’t just want Samling out, they want systemic change to prevent unwanted logging and land grabbing from happening again on their lands. And to this end, momentum is on our side. Last week, representatives from the Netherlands’ Timber Procurement Assessment Committee (TPAC) and the PEFC visited Sarawak to hear directly from communities and validate their claims. As the only significant importer of timber from Sarawak in the EU, the Netherlands investigation has the potential to set the standard for others in the trade bloc. If they withdraw from Sarawak, it may have broader implications for Malaysia’s future under the new EU deforestation regulations.
Celine Lim (second from left), managing director of Sarawak environmental non-profit Save Rivers showing community maps to visiting delegates from international accreditation body Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) and from the Netherlands’ Timber Procurement Assessment Committee (TPAC). Image: The Borneo Project and Save Rivers
Last year, our coalition wrote to Anwar Ibrahim, calling for Malaysia to enact legislation to prevent strategic lawsuits against public participation, better known as SLAPPs, adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People into national legislation and to overhaul Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) rules. Astonishingly, this month, the Draft National Action Plan for Business and Human Rights released by the Prime Minister’s office outlines a plan to do all three of these things.
The MTCC also issued a public call for submissions to overhaul its policies on Indigenous rights and consent. Interpretation of FPIC has long been a problem in the way extractive industries deal with Indigenous communities in Malaysia. Companies sometimes seek consent only from the village headman, or sometimes don’t bother seeking consent at all. We will watch the results of this policy shift carefully, and hope that it isn’t just a fig leaf exercise aimed at keeping us quiet.
Samling now claims it will shift from logging to carbon projects — a pivot that raises more red flags than hope. Communities are bracing for what this might mean on the ground, as examples around the world show that these projects tend to further marginalize forest communities, in fortress conservation style, and rarely achieve the carbon sequestration or offset goals they claim.
We also know that Samling leaving doesn’t mean that the land will remain untouched, as we have seen a terrible new logging project enter an area of pristine primary forest near Ba Data Bila after Samling withdrew from the area. This catastrophic project is fast approaching the sacred and biodiversity-rich Gunung Murud Kecil. The new company is even more opaque and secretive than Samling, and this new project has once again been condoned rather than condemned by the government.
Campaigns like Stop the Chop are won not in a single, dramatic moment, but through a steady drumbeat of resistance — small admissions, quiet shifts in policy, and relentless advocacy. While the fight is far from over, the impact of this movement is undeniable, not just for communities in Sarawak but across Malaysia. We have moved the needle in remarkable and unprecedented ways. These marginalized remote Indigenous communities, along with small grassroots NGOs, haven’t just slayed a corporate giant, they have reshaped the landscape of environmental justice in Sarawak. Their victory is more than a moment; it is a milestone, one that will echo for decades to come.
Fiona McAlpine is Communications and Project Manager for The Borneo Project, a non profit working with indigenous communities in Malaysian Borneo.
