Paper mill no pulp fiction for Ibans
Carol YongPublished: Dec 11, 2000 5:37 AM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 6:21 PM
Residents of eleven Iban longhouses in Upper Tatau in Bintulu, Sarawak have been staging blockades since Nov 15 to try to stop the Borneo Pulp and Paper Sdn Bhd (BPP) company from constructing its pulp mill and supporting infrastructure projects on their Native Customary Rights (NCR) land.
BPP is a joint-venture company between New York Stock Exchange-listed pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) Co Ltd which holds 60 per cent equity and Sarawak's Timber Industry Development Corporation (STIDC) which holds 40 per cent.
Residents of eleven Iban longhouses in Upper Tatau in Bintulu, Sarawak have been staging blockades since Nov 15 to try to stop the Borneo Pulp and Paper Sdn Bhd (BPP) company from constructing its pulp mill and supporting infrastructure projects on their Native Customary Rights (NCR) land.
BPP is a joint-venture company between New York Stock Exchange-listed pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) Co Ltd which holds 60 per cent equity and Sarawak's Timber Industry Development Corporation (STIDC) which holds 40 per cent.
More than 150 women and men from the 11 affected longhouses are blockading the subsidiary roads linked to the BPP pulp mill construction site to demand that:
1) BPP cease its operations immediately within their NCR land until the courts hears and decides on the issues of disputed customary land rights;
2) The state government of Sarawak to reinstall native customary rights to their lands;
3) BPP to carry out its project outside the NCR land area in Ulu Tatau, that is, on state land only and 4) The government and BPP not resettle them from their customary land.
Legal action initiated
The above demands were contained in a press statement issued by the Gerempong Dayak Menoa Tatau (Dayak Association of Tatau) two days after the blockades were set up. In addition, four members representing the affected communities have filed a case in court against BPP and the Sarawak state government in April this year.
The four Ibans are suing the forest plantation company for trespassing into their customary land and the Sarawak government for issuing the provisional lease to BPP without their informed consent. Different longhouse communities have filed three more legal suits against BPP and the Sarawak state government and these are pending trial.
Where have all these peoples' problems come from?
In August 1996, the Sarawak state government designated 606,200 hectares to BPP for forest plantations. Of this, 373,600 hectares are suitable for pulp wood plantations, notably for Acacia, an exotic tree plantation species.
Some six months later, in February 1997, about 6,200 hectares of land belonging to the local communities were acquired for the establishment of the proposed pulp mill project.
The communities, predominantly Ibans from Kemana, Tatau, Kakus and Anap in Bintulu Division, found their rights to customary land extinguished by the state government under Section 5(3) of the Sarawak Land Code 1958 (Cap 81).
Clearly, the modern legislation does not recognise customary rights established over land through continuous occupation by collecting forest produce, medicinal herbs, fishing and hunting in accordance with adat (customary law).
Pulp fiction?
BPP intends to clear the land to plant two species of Acacia mangium to help feed its proposed pulp and paper mill in Ulu Tatau in the Bintulu Division. The 750,000 tonne-per-year mill covering 2,400 hectares of land will cost its owner RM3.8billion.
Its production is aimed primarily for export, with China and India as the main destinations while other paper products will supply domestic customers.
In his speech during the International Pulp and Paper Conference in November 1997, Sarawak Chief Minister Haji Taib Mahmud had said that by the year 2013, Sarawak would become a pulp and paper producer because of the high demand from industrial countries.
So far, only one (in Sabah) out of the 18 mills in the country is producing its own pulp while the rest make do with recycled paper or original pulp imports.
Therefore, commercial-scale tree plantations are being promoted as a successful industrial export model of forestry development so that the chief minister's dream of Sarawak being a leading pulp and paper producer will not remain pulp fiction.
Apart from his rhetoric, Taib said the state will make available 2.4 to three million hectares, comprising NCR land, peat swamp, and over-logged land for the pulp and paper industry.
He also claimed that the plantation and pulp mill will bring indispensable social and economic benefits, including direct and indirect employment opportunities, increases in exports and support for Sarawak's development.
The question is, what kind of benefits can poor farmers derive from pulp and paper mills?
Arrested and jailed
The 1996 preliminary survey of the Bintulu Land and Survey Department identified that the project affected some 227 families from 12 longhouses who were promised a compensation of RM6,000 per acre for their NCR land acquired.
It was reliably learned that the offer later shrunk to RM1,600 and only 10 families accepted the 'new' compensation. At the same time, the contractors had carried out some land clearing without the community's prior informed consent and claimed the right to sell the timber.
In September 1997, the affected families formed a seven-member committee headed by an ethnic Kayan Muslim named Jaili bin Sulaiman to seek just and fair compensation for the acquisition of their NCR land.
However, not only did the communities' grievances fall on deaf ears of the officials and project owners, Jaili was arrested on Nov 4, 1997 and charged with threatening and causing obstruction to the project.
Following Jaili's arrest, some 30 members of the community staged a peaceful demonstration outside the Bintulu police station to demand for his release. Till today, the court has not made any decision on the case against Jaili.
In effect, the entire BPP plantation and mill project affects 180 longhouse communities with a total population of 17,063 comprising indigenous Dayak from the Iban, Kenyah, Kayan, Beketan and Punan groups and the Tatau and Lugat minority groups.
Longhouses affected by the mill have to be relocated, and since this July, the residents of two longhouses who agreed with the project were moved out. However, communities from the remaining longhouses who opposed the project have appealed for support against the compulsory acquisition of their NCR land and the constant alleged harassment and threats from BPP.
Bujang berani
On Nov 20 last year, 22 longhouse communities in the area affected by the BPP tree plantation held a traditional procession called Gawai Kelingkang. The Gawai is a symbolic ritual to defend their NCR land against the encroachment by BPP.
Traditionally these rituals were to recite the old story of victory of a bygone headhunting event. The Gawaiwas held in one of the longhouses called Rumah Lipu longhouse, 130km northeast of Sibu, in the central region of Sarawak.
Thirty indigenous 'warriors' known as bujang berani (warriors of the Dayak people) from Upper Tutoh River, Bakong River, Nut River, Tinjar River, Sebatu-Niah, Ulu Niah, Skabai and Belingian River covering the central and northern parts of Sarawak led the celebration.
Participants from various parts of Sarawak and abroad also joined the celebration in support of the peoples' struggle to defend their land against the encroachment of the plantation company.
Although, the pulp and paper industry remains one of the most contaminating industries, Sarawak thinks otherwise.
The Sarawak Ministry for Industrial Development said that cleaner production technologies and appropriate control technologies minimise the environmental impact of the pulp and paper industry, as seen in new mills used in Finland and Sweden.
These mills use a new pulp washing machinery to produce Total Chlorine Free (TCF) pulp, which reduces bleaching effluents.
Industrial pollution
While such technologies have yet to be tested locally, can BPP assure the affected communities specifically and the public generally that the bleached hardwood kraft pulp from its mill will not create another variety of environmental and health problems?
It is a fact that kraft pulping releases sulphur dioxide - a major contributor to acid rain - to the air at a rate of one to three kilogrammes per tonne of pulp.
In addition, the aluminum salts used in kraft pulping is highly toxic to certain fish and other aquatic life. Moreover, chlorine pulp bleaching has adverse effects on the human immune and reproductive systems.
Countries such as Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, South Africa, Indonesia, and Thailand all have tree plantations and mills churning out pulp and paper.
The pulp and paper industry is growing because the demand for paper is soaring, despite claims of the world moving towards a paperless society. At the same time, new plantations are contributing to the impoverishment of people and the degradation of the environment and biodiversity.
Take the case of PT TEL Indonesia. The 450,000 tonne-per-year Tanjung Enim Lestari (PT TEL) mill in Musi, south Sumatera is a joint venture between the Barito Pacific Timber Group, Indonesia's largest wood industries group and one of the world's biggest plywood makers, with a consortium comprising Japan's Marubeni, Nippon Paper and the Japan Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund.
Environmental poisoning
Holding more than 4.5 million hectares of Indonesia's forest land and a one-million hectare concession in Vietnam, Barito Pacific Timber Group is owned by former president Suharto's daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana.
When it started up in 1997, the mill had an area of some 300,000 hectares. The project affected thousands of people from seven affected villages. Testimonies from the villagers told of lost subsistence from cultivated fields, forests and rivers as well as revenues from rubber trees.
In addition, the mill had adverse health effects on the locals which include vomiting from the bad smell of polluted emission, queer itching and vomiting from consuming contaminated fish and water from the river, and skin rashes and sores from exposure to chlorine gas.
Women and children suffered most since they were mainly the ones left behind in the villages when the men migrated to seek waged work elsewhere. The influx of labour to work in the mill has encouraged gambling, drugs, consumerism and prostitution to thrive in the PT TEL area.
The peoples' resistance has met with military violence and intimidation.
The grim experience of how PT TEL has affected local communities has telling lessons which the wood industries group and plywood makers can learn from, if they listen.
CAROL YONG is a feminist researcher and activist based in Kota Kinabalu.
Photos by COLLIN NICHOLAS
BPP is a joint-venture company between New York Stock Exchange-listed pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp and Paper (APP) Co Ltd which holds 60 per cent equity and Sarawak's Timber Industry Development Corporation (STIDC) which holds 40 per cent.
More than 150 women and men from the 11 affected longhouses are blockading the subsidiary roads linked to the BPP pulp mill construction site to demand that:
1) BPP cease its operations immediately within their NCR land until the courts hears and decides on the issues of disputed customary land rights;
2) The state government of Sarawak to reinstall native customary rights to their lands;
3) BPP to carry out its project outside the NCR land area in Ulu Tatau, that is, on state land only and 4) The government and BPP not resettle them from their customary land.
Legal action initiated
The above demands were contained in a press statement issued by the Gerempong Dayak Menoa Tatau (Dayak Association of Tatau) two days after the blockades were set up. In addition, four members representing the affected communities have filed a case in court against BPP and the Sarawak state government in April this year.
The four Ibans are suing the forest plantation company for trespassing into their customary land and the Sarawak government for issuing the provisional lease to BPP without their informed consent. Different longhouse communities have filed three more legal suits against BPP and the Sarawak state government and these are pending trial.
Where have all these peoples' problems come from?
In August 1996, the Sarawak state government designated 606,200 hectares to BPP for forest plantations. Of this, 373,600 hectares are suitable for pulp wood plantations, notably for Acacia, an exotic tree plantation species.
Some six months later, in February 1997, about 6,200 hectares of land belonging to the local communities were acquired for the establishment of the proposed pulp mill project.
The communities, predominantly Ibans from Kemana, Tatau, Kakus and Anap in Bintulu Division, found their rights to customary land extinguished by the state government under Section 5(3) of the Sarawak Land Code 1958 (Cap 81).
Clearly, the modern legislation does not recognise customary rights established over land through continuous occupation by collecting forest produce, medicinal herbs, fishing and hunting in accordance with adat (customary law).
Pulp fiction?
BPP intends to clear the land to plant two species of Acacia mangium to help feed its proposed pulp and paper mill in Ulu Tatau in the Bintulu Division. The 750,000 tonne-per-year mill covering 2,400 hectares of land will cost its owner RM3.8billion.
Its production is aimed primarily for export, with China and India as the main destinations while other paper products will supply domestic customers.
In his speech during the International Pulp and Paper Conference in November 1997, Sarawak Chief Minister Haji Taib Mahmud had said that by the year 2013, Sarawak would become a pulp and paper producer because of the high demand from industrial countries.
So far, only one (in Sabah) out of the 18 mills in the country is producing its own pulp while the rest make do with recycled paper or original pulp imports.
Therefore, commercial-scale tree plantations are being promoted as a successful industrial export model of forestry development so that the chief minister's dream of Sarawak being a leading pulp and paper producer will not remain pulp fiction.
Apart from his rhetoric, Taib said the state will make available 2.4 to three million hectares, comprising NCR land, peat swamp, and over-logged land for the pulp and paper industry.
He also claimed that the plantation and pulp mill will bring indispensable social and economic benefits, including direct and indirect employment opportunities, increases in exports and support for Sarawak's development.
The question is, what kind of benefits can poor farmers derive from pulp and paper mills?
Arrested and jailed
The 1996 preliminary survey of the Bintulu Land and Survey Department identified that the project affected some 227 families from 12 longhouses who were promised a compensation of RM6,000 per acre for their NCR land acquired.
It was reliably learned that the offer later shrunk to RM1,600 and only 10 families accepted the 'new' compensation. At the same time, the contractors had carried out some land clearing without the community's prior informed consent and claimed the right to sell the timber.
In September 1997, the affected families formed a seven-member committee headed by an ethnic Kayan Muslim named Jaili bin Sulaiman to seek just and fair compensation for the acquisition of their NCR land.
However, not only did the communities' grievances fall on deaf ears of the officials and project owners, Jaili was arrested on Nov 4, 1997 and charged with threatening and causing obstruction to the project.
Following Jaili's arrest, some 30 members of the community staged a peaceful demonstration outside the Bintulu police station to demand for his release. Till today, the court has not made any decision on the case against Jaili.
In effect, the entire BPP plantation and mill project affects 180 longhouse communities with a total population of 17,063 comprising indigenous Dayak from the Iban, Kenyah, Kayan, Beketan and Punan groups and the Tatau and Lugat minority groups.
Longhouses affected by the mill have to be relocated, and since this July, the residents of two longhouses who agreed with the project were moved out. However, communities from the remaining longhouses who opposed the project have appealed for support against the compulsory acquisition of their NCR land and the constant alleged harassment and threats from BPP.
Bujang berani
On Nov 20 last year, 22 longhouse communities in the area affected by the BPP tree plantation held a traditional procession called Gawai Kelingkang. The Gawai is a symbolic ritual to defend their NCR land against the encroachment by BPP.
Traditionally these rituals were to recite the old story of victory of a bygone headhunting event. The Gawaiwas held in one of the longhouses called Rumah Lipu longhouse, 130km northeast of Sibu, in the central region of Sarawak.
Thirty indigenous 'warriors' known as bujang berani (warriors of the Dayak people) from Upper Tutoh River, Bakong River, Nut River, Tinjar River, Sebatu-Niah, Ulu Niah, Skabai and Belingian River covering the central and northern parts of Sarawak led the celebration.
Participants from various parts of Sarawak and abroad also joined the celebration in support of the peoples' struggle to defend their land against the encroachment of the plantation company.
Although, the pulp and paper industry remains one of the most contaminating industries, Sarawak thinks otherwise.
The Sarawak Ministry for Industrial Development said that cleaner production technologies and appropriate control technologies minimise the environmental impact of the pulp and paper industry, as seen in new mills used in Finland and Sweden.
These mills use a new pulp washing machinery to produce Total Chlorine Free (TCF) pulp, which reduces bleaching effluents.
Industrial pollution
While such technologies have yet to be tested locally, can BPP assure the affected communities specifically and the public generally that the bleached hardwood kraft pulp from its mill will not create another variety of environmental and health problems?
It is a fact that kraft pulping releases sulphur dioxide - a major contributor to acid rain - to the air at a rate of one to three kilogrammes per tonne of pulp.
In addition, the aluminum salts used in kraft pulping is highly toxic to certain fish and other aquatic life. Moreover, chlorine pulp bleaching has adverse effects on the human immune and reproductive systems.
Countries such as Brazil, Uruguay, Chile, South Africa, Indonesia, and Thailand all have tree plantations and mills churning out pulp and paper.
The pulp and paper industry is growing because the demand for paper is soaring, despite claims of the world moving towards a paperless society. At the same time, new plantations are contributing to the impoverishment of people and the degradation of the environment and biodiversity.
Take the case of PT TEL Indonesia. The 450,000 tonne-per-year Tanjung Enim Lestari (PT TEL) mill in Musi, south Sumatera is a joint venture between the Barito Pacific Timber Group, Indonesia's largest wood industries group and one of the world's biggest plywood makers, with a consortium comprising Japan's Marubeni, Nippon Paper and the Japan Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund.
Environmental poisoning
Holding more than 4.5 million hectares of Indonesia's forest land and a one-million hectare concession in Vietnam, Barito Pacific Timber Group is owned by former president Suharto's daughter, Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana.
When it started up in 1997, the mill had an area of some 300,000 hectares. The project affected thousands of people from seven affected villages. Testimonies from the villagers told of lost subsistence from cultivated fields, forests and rivers as well as revenues from rubber trees.
In addition, the mill had adverse health effects on the locals which include vomiting from the bad smell of polluted emission, queer itching and vomiting from consuming contaminated fish and water from the river, and skin rashes and sores from exposure to chlorine gas.
Women and children suffered most since they were mainly the ones left behind in the villages when the men migrated to seek waged work elsewhere. The influx of labour to work in the mill has encouraged gambling, drugs, consumerism and prostitution to thrive in the PT TEL area.
The peoples' resistance has met with military violence and intimidation.
The grim experience of how PT TEL has affected local communities has telling lessons which the wood industries group and plywood makers can learn from, if they listen.
CAROL YONG is a feminist researcher and activist based in Kota Kinabalu.
Photos by COLLIN NICHOLAS
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