Sarawak rainforest and its indigenous peoples

August 2012: Kenyah native people from the communities of Long Lewan standing on a road near their home. They are a community still standing firm against widespread deforestation. Logging companies have to negotiate with them for access and pay to extract timber. The people shown here participated on the actual human blockades during two years continuously from 1991 through 1992. The adults in the front row were children two decades ago. Long Lewan, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo

Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Some of this community lives at Long Lewan. The Bakun hydro-electric dam covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses. 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. 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

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Copyright: Nigel Dickinson
Image Size: 5760x3840 / 3.8MB; 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 'Then' 1989-91 and 'Now' 2012-2015

August 2012: Kenyah native people from the communities of Long Lewan standing on a road near their home. They are a community still standing firm against widespread deforestation. Logging companies have to negotiate with them for access and pay to extract timber. The people shown here participated on the actual human blockades during two years continuously from 1991 through 1992. The adults in the front row were children two decades ago. Long Lewan, Belaga district, Sarawak, Borneo<br />
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Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Some of this community lives at Long Lewan. The Bakun hydro-electric dam covers 700km². Construction of the dam required the relocation of more than 9,000 native residents, Kenyah indigenous peoples who lived in the flooded area. Many Sarawak natives have been relocated to a longhouse settlement named Sungai Asap in Bakun. Most of them were subsistence farmers. Each family were promised only 3 acres of land, insufficient to survive, and many families still have not been compensated for the loss of their longhouses. 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. 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