By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Oct 19: The Tanah Adat and Lepu’un Committee of Hulu Balui has staged a protest against a reforestation project in Sungai Buang, Uma Lahanan, alleging encroachment into native customary land (NCR) and destruction of the environment and cultural heritage.
Led by committee chairman Denis Hang Bilang, the group comprising five members from Uma Daro, Uma Belor, Uma Juman and Uma Lahanan gathered at the site located in Belaga yesterday (Oct 18) to express their opposition to the ongoing bamboo-planting activities by private operators.
“The protest was made after the committee discovered that the project had encroached into territories still regarded as customary land (NCR) and Lepu’un belonging to the original Hulu Balui communities, and has caused serious environmental damage and threatened the cultural heritage of the local people,” Denis said in a statement.
According to the committee, the project has caused damage to the environment, polluted the rivers and disrupted the traditional livelihoods of the Hulu Balui people, who depend heavily on fishing and forest resources.
Soil erosion from the project area, they added, flows directly into Bakun Lake, potentially shortening the lifespan of the Bakun Dam due to siltation and sediment buildup.
The committee further alleged that the project had encroached onto ancestral customary lands which have been inherited and occupied by the Hulu Balui people long before the rule of James Brooke in 1841 and the formation of Malaysia.
The committee also raised objection to the Land Order (Extinguishment of Native Customary Rights) (Bakun Reservoir Area) (No. 4), 1997, issued under the administration of former Chief Minister Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud.
The gazette, dated Feb 15, 1997, had extinguished all NCR rights of the Bakun communities without consent and fair compensation, which they claimed violated Article 13 of the Federal Constitution.
Representing the Hulu Balui people, Denis submitted four demands to the Sarawak government:
- To repeal the 1997 gazette and restore extinguished NCR land rights.
- To provide replacement land for all customary and Lepu’un territories submerged by the Bakun Hydroelectric Project, with the unsubmerged lands at the ancestral territorial domain.
- To re-gazette all customary and Lepu’un lands with official maps, similar to the documentation made by the British Administration on Jan 1, 1958.
- To compel the responsible company to compensate the Uma Lahanan community in accordance with the 1989 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Sarawak Timber Association (STA) and OUNA Belaga Branch, adjusted to 10 times the current value of the ringgit.
Denis stressed that the protest is not an act of rejecting progress but a call for justice and recognition of ancestral rights.
“We do not oppose development, but we reject any attempt to erase our ancestral rights in violation of Article 13 of the Federal Constitution.
“Our land belongs to the countless number of our ancestors who are dead, the few who are living, and the multitude of those yet to be born,” he said. – DayakDaily
