A three-year blockade set up by the Penans of Upper Baram in Sarawak to deter loggers has been dismantled.

This paves the way for logging of one of the country's last primary forests.

According to a statement from the Switzerland-based society for the protection of rainforest communities - Bruno Manser Fonds (BMF) - police personnel and workers of Malaysian logging giant Samling Group removed the blockade on the night of Feb 7.

By the time members of the Long Benali community which set up the blockade got wind of the operation and arrived at the blockade site the next morning, it was already too late as logging tractors and bulldozers had already moved in to begin construction of the access road.

"The Penan were forced to watch from the distance (as) the company started bulldozing their land," said BMF in a statement.

Legal suit

Samling has received certification and logging licenses from the Sarawak state authorities as well as from the Malaysian Timber Certification Council (MTCC).

The Penans, however, have contested these in a legal suit pending at the Miri High Court since1998.

They also dispute the sustainable forest management certification that Samling received from MTCC in 2004 over its concession area in the Sela'an-Linau forest.

BMF said the Penan community and the Miri-based non-governmental organisation Borneo Resource Institute (Brimas) were "very disappointed" with the latest development.

They vowed, however, to continue the three-year struggle against what they consider is Samling's encroachment into their native customary land.

"If we don't defy the loggers now, all the remaining primary forests in the Upper Baram area will be gone within two years," BMF quoted a source as saying.