'Baram dam survey destroying smallholdings'
Native people living at the proposed site for the Baram dam in northern Sarawak are crying foul that the state's Land and Survey Department has begun extinguishing their customary rights by destroying their small holdings.
Native people living at the proposed site for the Baram dam in northern Sarawak are crying foul that the state's Land and Survey Department has begun extinguishing their customary rights by destroying their small holdings.
This is despite the dam, one of the 12 to be built in Sarawak, is still at the survey phase, said the Save River Network NO in a statement.
At a meeting with some 70 Baram folks in Miri recently, several noted that the destruction has been going on since mid last year, it added.
One of the participants, Doris Kaftan, according to the statement, had told the meeting that he and eight other land owners had in June last year had called on Land and Survey Department officials to inquire about their lots affected by the ongoing survey exercise to build an access road to the dam
"At that meeting, a lot of dissatisfaction was aired as the survey was done without proper consultation.
Relentless march to dam
"Instead it went ahead without our knowledge so (our) crops, fruit trees, rubber trees and plants on the route were destroyed," she said.
Save River Network chairman Peter Kallang (left), who was one of the participants, said: "We urge SEB chief executive officer Thorstien Dale Sjotveit to stop all works related to the construction of the dam.
"We request the government develop alternative methods of power generation which are people and environment-friendly."
According to the Swiss-based NGO Bruno Mansion Fund (B.F.), the proposed 162 meter high Baram dam would flood a rainforest area of 412 square km (41,200 hectares) and at least 26 indigenous villages, causing the displacement of up to 20,000 Sarawak natives once it is in operation.
The contentious dam is one of 12 gigantic hydro-electric dams - not counting the controversial Bakun dam - planned across the state as part of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud's grand plan for the state's Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (Score).
At the moment, the surveying of the access road to the dam's sites, soil studies and other related preliminary studies are ongoing.
Meanwhile, the meeting also saw the natives signing a joint letter to the Baran dam project owner, Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB) to halt all work in the area.
