Survival urges EU to respect Borneo tribes’ rights

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Survival International is urging the European Union not to sign a timber deal with Malaysia, unless Malaysia upholds the rights of tribal peoples on the island of Borneo.

Malaysia wants the EU to accept a voluntary commitment that Malaysian timber will meet EU legal standards. But Indigenous people fear the deal would ignore the failure of the state government of Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of Borneo, to recognize and respect their rights.

For decades, the Sarawak government has issued logging licences on Indigenous peoples’ land without their free, prior and informed consent. The hunter-gatherer Penan tribe are particularly affected by logging companies operating on their land, and destroying the forests they rely on.

Malaysian Indigenous groups are also calling on the EU to ensure that no deal is signed unless it ‘forces’ their government to recognize Indigenous rights.

Survival’s director Stephen Corry wrote in a letter to EU officials, ‘Survival urges the EU not to sign any VPA [‘voluntary partnership agreement’] with Malaysia until the Malaysian government recognizes and upholds Indigenous peoples’ rights to ownership of their land, and until all logging on Penan and other Indigenous peoples’ land without their free, prior and informed consent is halted.’