Sarawak rainforest and its indigenous peoples

Women from the Kenyah tribe making traditional bags from plastic instead of rattan, which would be found in the rain forest...Sungai Asap Longhouse community where Long Geng Kenyah community was forcibly resettled after their homes where flooded by the Bakun Dam. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. ..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

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Contained in galleries: Sarawak 'Then' 1989-91 and 'Now' 2012-2015

Women from the Kenyah tribe making traditional bags from plastic instead of rattan, which would be found in the rain forest...Sungai Asap Longhouse community where Long Geng Kenyah community was forcibly resettled after their homes where flooded by the Bakun Dam. Home of the Kenyah native people who once lived in Long Geng, which was flooded by the Bakun Dam. Their community is now dispersed between Sungai Asap, Long Lewan and floating longhouses on the Bakun reservoir. Bakun Belaga region, Sarawak Borneo 2012..The huge Petronas Sabah-Sarawak pipeline is being built across the Borneo rainforest through native areas. Petronas is the government cash cow which funds about 45% of its budget. New roads are being built, though much of the transport follows the existing roads and infrastructure created by logging. Whilst the government heralds the project as a source of jobs for local people, it is unlikely to bring much but wanton damage to rainforest habitat and paving the way for further deforestation by oil palm plantations. ..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