Hurst quotes one example of the conflict between Limbang Trading and Along Sega, a Penan headman from Long Adang ('Long' is the local term for 'Longhouse'). The 1,000 km2 Limbang concession was owned by Datuk James Wong, the Tourist Minister for Sarawak. The trouble started in 1985 when Limbang Trading destroyed the graves of Along Sega's parents and five other relatives. It was one of the first cases in which a more militant stand began to emerge. The logging camp manager offered Along a MS$ 100 (US$40) note as compensation, which Along refused.
In his own words:
I told him, even if I have to die of any cause I shall not trade the bodies and souls of my parents and relatives to save mine because our bodies, dead or alive, are not for sale. I refused the money and pleaded with him also that if you have so much money already please don't come here to take our land. But he just shook his head, laughed and replied; 'We have been licensed to work on this land. There is no such thing as your land in the forest because forest belongs only to the government. Take this money or you get nothing.' I still rejected the money. </blockqote>
The Penan, however, are not the only tribal group to be angered by the timber industry. In 1981, 500 Kenyah from Long Apoh on the Baram river approached the Sam Ling Timber Company logging camp and demanded compensation for damage to their land. Previously they had sent a number of petitions asking the company to enter into negotiations over compensation proposals for their longhouse. All these had been ignored and when there was still no response to their suggestion of MS$40 (US$16) compensation for every ton of timber extracted they threatened to burn the camp. The Kenyah leaders were promptly arrested.
Later that year 80 people from 22 longhouses descended on the Lamat logging camp demanding MS$2 (US$0.80 cents) per ton of timber extracted. The longhouses had applied for their own timber licenses a number of times but had been refused and the 68,000 ha concession had gone to Lamat.187 Another incident occurred in the Niah area where a camp manager was stopped and forced to pay MS$7,000 (US$2,800) as compensation for damage caused by logging. The local longhouse had earlier been promised compensation, but it never arrived. Once again those involved were arrested.
In 1983 the Ulu Nyalan logging camp in Niah was threatened by a small group of Iban demanding MS$100,000 (US$40,000) as compensation and MS$10 for every ton of timber extracted.189 They threatened to burn down the camp and were arrested two days later. In October of that year several blocks of living quarters in the Batu Niah logging camp were burnt to the ground. In January 1984, 200 Iban barricaded a timber road with logs at Lubok Lalang in Sungai Medamit. They demanded MS$2m (US$790,000) in compensation from another company owned by Datuk James Wong, to no avail.
In other cases, however, compensation has been agreed although the sums that change hands are clearly inadequate for the loss of resources. At Long Piah, in the Baram District, loggers drove roads through swidden fields without permission. According to the local people the sites are now useless as all the top soil has been scraped or washed away. They did not bother to take the company to court for this illegal damage on Native Customary Land, as they could only claim the maximum MS$5 per metre compensation for the damage.190 There is a general mistrust in the justice handed out from the courts within Sarawak's Dayak community. This has built up from a number of cases in which logging companies have broken the law but received no punishment.
The law can, however, even act against tribal people attempting to stop logging on land they own. In 1985, Laeng Wan, a Kayan from Long Miri, was arrested for building a fence across a logging road leading to his land. He was charged with unlawfully restricting a trespasser from encroaching on his own land. In 1977 he had signed an agreement leasing his land for ten years to a timber company. In 1983, however, when the initial cut had been completed, the timber company moved out and was replaced by a new contractor, and logging continued without Laeng Wan's permission or any offer of compensation for the extra damage caused. It was then that Laeng took matters into his own hands and built the barricade. Due to the extremely intimate relationship between government officials and timber concessionaires, many longhouses complain that the authorities are not interested in their problems. One example, in late 1986, from Long Tepan on Ulu Tutoh, a major tributary of the Baram, illustrates this lack of concern.
The Dayaks described their experiences when some government officials took the unusual step of visiting an area where complaints had emerged.
"As we are not able to write we were happy that they [government officers] came, so we told them about our problems which are mainly caused by the logging activities of Samling Timber Snd Bhd, which started operations about six years ago in Sungai Puak. They wrote all what we told them down and we were assured that they would take the necessary action to protect our land as requested. But merely two weeks after they left the bulldozers roared mercilessly around us. Then we realized it was just another empty promise from the officials. Samling Timber gained their logging rights direct from twelve longhouses by giving them MS$2,000 (approximately MS$7 per person; US$3) in return for allowing timber contractors to clear the land.
View representation made by Penan to the Malaysian Timber Certification Council
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