We wind our way through a maze of logging roads in Sarawak, heading toward some of the state’s so-called reforestation projects. Sarawak claims to be at the forefront of Malaysia’s green revolution, planting millions of trees and launching its first carbon offset initiatives. But many on the ground fear that the green rush is just the latest threat to Indigenous land rights and is damaging forests on the ground with no demonstrable benefits to the climate as a whole.
Sarawak wants to boast 1 million hectares of tree plantations by 2025 but currently has half that. Where they’re going to find the half a million hectare shortfall remains to be seen. Sarawak already has a patchwork of functioning and failed plantations, but none of these could be mistaken for forests. There are no fruiting trees for the small mammals to eat, and therefore no small mammals for the big predators to eat. There is no canopy for the arboreal animals, which make up many of the rare and endangered species in Sarawak such as the gibbon, slow loris, and binturong. Eucalyptus, along with many species of acacia, are considered toxic and poisonous to many animal species.
Hour after hour, we drive past unbroken stretches of oil palm plantations, the monotony only broken when we reach a lookout point. Stepping out of our trusty Hilux, we survey the landscape: an enormous, abandoned acacia plantation sprawls before us, stretching to the horizon. Hundreds of acres of failed, lifeless trees stand where vibrant forests once thrived. The scale of the devastation is staggering.
It’s a relief when we reach the village of Punan Bah, a forest oasis in a sea of monoculture. Punan Bah sits on the mighty Rejang River, a paradise for those who manage to resist the logging, palm oil, and industrial timber plantation pressures. This resilience is thanks in part to our host, Gebril Atong, who once worked for the logging company Samling. He spent six years as a community liaison officer, working on some of the first industrial tree plantations in the area. He knows firsthand that environmental safeguards are not met, and he’s seen the aftermath when communities take short-term payouts, sacrificing their ancestral lands.
“Look at these forests,” Gebril says as we share a drink and watch the river roll by. “They call what they’re doing reforestation, but no one can replace these forests.”
Oil palm, industrial timber, and natural forest side by side in the Lana plantation, Sarawak. Image: Fiona McAlpine
While they don’t support selective logging either, communities like Gebril’s consider plantations to be a lot worse. Selective logging, when done correctly, spares smaller trees that can continue growing, allowing the forest a chance at long-term recovery. By comparison, Samling’s tree plantations in this area flatten the forest entirely, dragging out all vegetation and starting again from scratch with foreign, invasive, fast-growing species.
The irony is that they call these plantations ‘planted forest’, which means that hundreds of thousands of hectares of cleared, scarred land can count towards Malaysia’s official forest cover count. It means Malaysia can announce they’ve lost no annual forest cover, to the cheers of the international community, while continuing to transform what were once native old growth ecosystems into pesticide-laden monocultures. It also potentially means that Sarawak can say they are pushing carbon projects by planting trees ‘without losing any forest’.
Our home for the next few days is the community heritage hall, adorned with ceremonial hats, rattan handicrafts and carved oars — all crafted from the surrounding forest. When the community harvested two protected belian trees to build the hall, the company reported them to the forest department. Conversely, the Punan Bah community have reported the company for encroaching into their land. In both cases, nothing has happened.
The views of the company and the community are entirely at odds. The community argues the land the company encroached upon is their pulau galau — a type of reserve forest land that is supposed to be respected as native customary land. The company, however, argues that the land is theirs under a licence to harvest because no official recognition for the community claims exists. Even the Punan Bah longhouse itself is within the plantation boundary.
The government will only issue native customary rights (NCR) to communities that can prove they used the land before 1958, based on aerial photographs from that time. But there are gaps and flaws, and the government often withholds these photos from the communities, leaving them with no clear basis for their dispute. This approach ignores self-determination altogether. Yet Punan Bah has proof that few others have: the kelirieng, a series of ancient burial columns marking the graves of their aristocratic ancestors, some dating back to the mid-17th century.
To assert there is no evidence of the community using the forest before the mid-20th century is preposterous. But the kelirieng poles don’t fit the evidence framework, where you must show land use like rice fields or rows of fruit trees, with proof. Showing the village existed prior to the cutoff date is not sufficient, even though logic would insist that these remote, roadless communities were obviously living off the land at the time.
We venture out to look at some of the established industrial timber plantations. We drive to an area that was converted from natural forests to plantations since the pandemic, meaning none of it complies with the new EU deforestation regulations. Gebril explains the rules that he learned when he was trained in planting. He shows us areas where the oil palm trees are planted along the riverbank, in violation of riparian buffer rules. He shows us where fire has been used to clear land, against open fire regulations. He shows us where eucalyptus and acacia have been planted on steep hills, breaking the 25-degree limit. It’s no wonder trees regularly end up blocking roads and clogging rivers.
The Punan Bah community brought their land rights case to court and hope to set a precedent. While the case was heard years ago, they still await a decision. If the court rules in favour of the Punan Bah community, then it is very likely the companies will appeal, restarting the waiting game.
Gebril admiring his community forest from the longhouse. Image: Fiona McAlpine
“What people don’t realise, is it’s not just about land grabbing,” explains Gebril. “If you take away our land you take away our culture and our identity. Without forests, we can’t teach children words for plants, trees, animals, everything else. It all disappears, our whole culture.”
A silver lining is that the companies surrounding their land can’t operate there while the court case is pending. So for the time being, we get to sit in the longhouse watching stunning birds, bats, dragonflies and the occasional macaque enjoying these last vestiges of rainforest, while it’s still here.
Sarawak’s so-called green revolution is little more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Corporate interests and the state government are repeating past mistakes, operating in ways that not only devastate the environment but also further marginalise remote Indigenous communities. Plantations are not forests, and the façade of sustainability fools no one. These industrial monocultures pale in comparison to the rich biodiversity and ecological harmony of native forests, standing instead as stark symbols of corporate colonialism. The difference is clear, and we must act to protect what remains of these irreplaceable ecosystems before it’s too late.
Fiona McAlpine is Communications and Project Manager for The Borneo Project, a non-profit working with indigenous communities in Malaysian Borneo. To find out more about their work, head to borneoproject.org.
