Sarawak rainforest and its indigenous peoples

Penan watching television in wood and brick built municipal longhouse. Kelabit native people facing a mounting threat to lose their traditional lands, ancestral burial grounds, culture and habitat, once the hydro-electric dam project floods their lands. Limbang, Sarawak Borneo..The Limbang valley including Long Napir, a cluster of four settlements of Penan and Kelabit people, is threatened by a new hydro-electric project which will flood the entire area, displacing thousands of native people. The Murum Hydro-electric project already underway affecting the Rejang region, will displace over 24,000 Dayak native residents, destroying their longhouses and forest habitat. The dam site is located on the Murum River, in the uppermost part of the Rajang River basin, 200 km from Bintulu...Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.

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Copyright: Nigel Dickinson
Image Size: 5760x3840 / 3.3MB; https://nigeldickinson.photoshelter.com/p/terms-conditions; https://nigeldickinson.photoshelter.com/contact; sarawak malaysia deforestation rainforest rain forest dam hydro-electric hydro electric forestry tree wood timber oil palm development habitat environment tribes indigenous land human rights biodiversity people kenyah kelabit penan iban dayak native survival hunter gatherer farmer destroyed destruction modern hardwood pipeline Bakun Murum Long Napir Limbang Belaga Rejang Baram Kuching sustainable sustainability threatened
Contained in galleries: Sarawak: Borneo Revisited extras 2012-2015

Penan watching television in wood and brick built municipal longhouse. Kelabit native people facing a mounting threat to lose their traditional lands, ancestral burial grounds, culture and habitat, once the hydro-electric dam project floods their lands. Limbang, Sarawak Borneo..The Limbang valley including Long Napir, a cluster of four settlements of Penan and Kelabit people, is threatened by a new hydro-electric project which will flood the entire area, displacing thousands of native people. The Murum Hydro-electric project already underway affecting the Rejang region, will displace over 24,000 Dayak native residents, destroying their longhouses and forest habitat. The dam site is located on the Murum River, in the uppermost part of the Rajang River basin, 200 km from Bintulu...Borneo native peoples and their rainforest habitat revisited two decades later: 1989/1991-2012. ..Sarawak's primary rainforests have been systematically logged over decades, threatening the sustainable lifestyle of its indigenous peoples who relied on nomadic hunter-gathering and rotational slash & burn cultivation of small areas of forest to survive. Now only a few areas of pristine rainforest remain; for the Dayaks and Penan this spells disaster, a rapidly disappearing way of life, forced re-settlement, many becoming wage-slaves. Large and medium size tree trunks have been sawn down and dragged out by bulldozers, leaving destruction in their midst, and for the most part a primary rainforest ecosystem beyond repair. Nowadays palm oil plantations and hydro-electric dam projects cover hundreds of thousands of hectares of what was the world's oldest rainforest ecosystem which had some of the highest rates of flora and fauna endemism, species found there and nowhere else on Earth, and this deforestation has done irreparable ecological damage to that region.