Right now in Malaysia, Sarawak’s native forests are
being torn down to make way for a giant monoculture plantation of
bamboo—a project that could devastate ecosystems and local
communities for generations to come.
The forests are home to the Kayan, Kenyah, Lahanan, Ukit, and
Penan Indigenous communities who have cared for the land for
generations. Now, plantation giant Rich Venture is completely
disregarding their land rights and failing to properly consult
them.
Rich Venture just wants to get rich and doesn’t care what it
destroys along the way. Earlier this year, bulldozers began tearing
down Sarawak’s native forests—and the destruction is only going to
ramp up.
But Indigenous communities are fighting back. They’re in
talks with the Sarawak Government and hoping to meet with the
Premier very soon. We must act fast to back them and shine a global
spotlight on this devastation—before even more of their ancestral
forests are lost.
Sign the petition: tell Rich Venture to stop the
bamboo plantation and compensate local communities.
These communities have already faced injustices. In the 1990s the
construction of a mega-dam flooded 15 villages, displacing more than
9,000 people.
And now Rich Venture wants to cut down swathes of the remaining
native forest on the banks of the dam, which will result in erosion
and sediment runoff that could flow straight into the Bakun
Reservoir–threatening the water quality, fisheries, and food
security for locals.
Gibbons, clouded leopards and hornbills are also at risk
of losing their habitats to over 28,000 football fields of
bamboo which won’t provide any food or shelter to the native animals
already struggling to survive.
Local communities have asked Rich Venture that they be
properly consulted and have access to management plans and
environmental impact assessments but their requests have been
completely disregarded.
Add your name to the petition and help the Indigenous
communities in Sarawak protect their native forests.
Together we’ve taken on big corporations destroying forests and
won. We supported Forest Defenders fighting to stop palm oil giant
Sin Heng Chan from destroying the Ulu Belaga forest—and a moratorium
on new forest clearing has just been put in place!
Let’s do it again and stop Rich Venture’s monoculture bamboo
plantation.
