By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, Oct 16: Civil society organisations have attributed the cancellation of the flagship US$1.4 million Baram Peace Park project, which aims to conserve a core area of 79,000 hectares of primary forest by excising it from existing logging concessions, to a lack of transparency and a breakdown in communication.
In a joint media release yesterday (Oct 15), organisations including Bruno Manser Fonds (BMF), Save Rivers, Keruan, and The Borneo Project stated that international donors were stunned upon learning that the Sarawak Forest Department’s (SFD) had decided to terminate the project just minutes before a scheduled meeting in Miri on Oct 10.
Bruno Manser Fonds, which is one of the donors alongside the Japanese government and the City of Basel (Switzerland), said the local press were informed of the cancellation before any communication reached the donors.
Initially launched as the Baram Peace Park by local communities as an Indigenous community-led conservation effort, the project was submitted to the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO) for funding by the Malaysian government as the “Upper Baram Forest Area” (UBFA).
The initiative spanned 283,500 hectares of forest and agricultural land in Sarawak’s Upper Baram region, with a key objective of preserving the designated core area of 79,000 hectares.
The groups expressed disappointment that this conservation vision was excluded from the final plans presented by the government.
They alleged that after securing international funding, the Sarawak forestry agency and ITTO shifted their focus toward promoting logging under the guise of sustainable forest management.
Following the expiration of two major logging concessions at the end of 2023, a new concession was granted to a timber company, which promptly commenced aggressive logging operations, igniting conflicts within local communities.
Amid pressure from civil society organisations to disclose details about the concession’s operations, the groups claimed that SFD cancelled the ITTO project.
Celine Lim, managing director of Save Rivers, one of the non-govermental organisations (NGOs) supporting the project, criticised the exclusion of communities and civil society from decision-making processes.
“Our concerns have gone unanswered. We expect the project to uphold principles of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC), sustainable land management, and self-determination. These guiding values, reaffirmed in a declaration by participating communities last year, are essential. However, we were disappointed by the stance of the SFD.”
BMF director Lukas Straumann stressed that sustainability cannot exist without transparency and lamented ITTO’s failure to act independently from the SFD.
“ITTO should have established from the outset that in an internationally funded project, key principles like transparency and adherence to FPIC standards are non-negotiable,” he stated.
On Oct 10, the SFD announced its request to terminate the UBFA project due to ongoing challenges and disruptions that had impeded its successful implementation since September 2023.
These disruptions included submissions of official letters to high-level officials, overseas demonstrations, and the publication of damaging articles containing unsubstantiated allegations against Sarawak and ITTO, all without consulting project partners.
SFD director Datu Hamden Mohammad noted that the UBFA project had faced significant interference from both local and international NGOs, particularly BMF and Save Rivers.
He asserted that such actions have fostered distrust and spread misleading information among local communities, ultimately compromising the project’s integrity.
However, he emphasised that the Sarawak government remains committed to supporting the people of Upper Baram and intends to pursue the project with alternative funding sources. — DayakDaily
