story 1:Indigenous people protest against logging(print style)

By Joshua Wong

Kuala Lumpur: On Sunday, some 300 Orang Asli (indigenous people) from Semelai community staged a protest against a contractor who had allegedly logged 400 tonnes of timber from their ancestral land in Bera, Pahang.

The community from Bukit Rok Village and Ibam Village had camped at the only exit leading to the site where the timbers were allegedly logged.

They repeatedly chanted slogans such as “We love our land. Do not encroach our land! “(Kami sayang tanah kami! Jangan cerobohkan Tanah Kami!), “We have been oppressed. We will uphold our right!” (saya orang ditindas! Kami mempertahankan hak kami.) had kept the protesters in the high spirits.

The community claimed that the logger had encroached at least 69.8 hectare out of 2,023.47 hectare of the land which was recorded by the Department of Orang Asli (JHEOA).

The villagers also claimed that trees and other natural resources which they depend on traditionally to make ends meet, were infringed due to the logging activities.

“I fell upset when they cut down my trees. We used to extract resin from the keruning trees in the area. But now we have to stop. This has drastically affected our livelihood” said Pak Long who has been collecting the resins for 25 years.

The logging company Amir Timber Trading which was embroiled in the controversy denied the allegation.

The company claimed the state forestry department had granted them a permit to log an estimated 1,000 tonnes of timber from the site for one year.

Centre for Orang Asli Cencerns director Colin Nicholas pointed out that the tussle was due to the authorities’ failure to protect the ancestral land.

He said the state government has yet to gazette the lands that had been categorised as indigenous people reserve land.

"Their land rights are not recognised. The state authorities are allowing logs to be taken from the area. It is negligence on the part of the state government for not gazetting the land or protect Orang Asli victims (in the incident),” he said.

Nevertheless, the protest ended after a six-hour long negotiation between the villagers and the authorities including Bera parliamentarian Ismail Sabri and the police.

“All parties have agreed that logging will be stopped. Those trees that had already been logged could be brought out of the site,” Ismail told reporters after the meeting.

It was also agreed that a meeting with officials from the state forestry department, the land office, the JHEOA and the contactor will be called in the following week to determine the actual status of the land.