[UPDATE: Translation in progress. The free time I thought I had earlier in the day dissipated towards the afternoon. Should be able to translate part of the report before the week is over]
An official report on the rape of Penan girls and women in the interior of Sarawak has been published. Compiled by the Ministry of Women, Community and Family Development , the report confirms that rape and sexual abuse had indeed taken place.
Consider this: a logging company was given a concession to log a large tract of rainforest in Sarawak, the Malaysian state on Borneo Island.
The logged over area would later be flooded to create a 14,750 sq km catchment area for the Bakun hydroelectric dam. For the record, and not to spite Singapore, the catchment area is more than twice the size of the island republic, which is only 697 sq km.
Massive water catchment area
After harvesting the forest, and pocketing probably hundreds of millions in profits from the timber, the company is now pulling out of the area.
In doing so, the company will also dismantle two iron bridges, a decision that will cut off the Penans and other natives from the outside world.
According to The Star, the decision caused an uproar among politicians and thousands of rural natives, who described the firm’s decision as heartless and selfish.
The report says Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, who visited the area with several MPs from the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club, including Ulu Rejang MP Datuk Billy Abit Joo and Johor Baharu MP Datuk Shahrir Samad, said the firm must reconsider its decision.
“Do not touch the bridges for the next two months. I will make some phone calls and see how I can help these rural folks settle the issue,” Abit warned the timber firm after his visit to the interior.
Here is the full report from The Star newspaper:
Penans cut off from world By STEPHEN THEN
LUSONG LAKU (Kapit, Sarawak): The decision by a Sarawak timber giant to dismantle iron bridges in the deep interior of central Sarawak, after completing logging operations in the Bakun dam area, has caused an uproar among politicians and thousands of rural natives.
They have described the firm’s decision as heartless and selfish.
Dewan Rakyat Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, who visited the area with several MPs from the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers Club, including Ulu Rejang MP Datuk Billy Abit Joo and Johor Baru MP Datuk Shahrir Samad, said the firm must reconsider its decision.
“Do not touch the bridges for the next two months. I will make some phone calls and see how I can help these rural folks settle the issue,’’ he warned the timber firm after his visit to the interior from last Tuesday to Friday.
He said he would bring the issue to the higher authorities in Kuala Lumpur.
The company, which has hundreds of thousands of logging concessions in Sarawak and overseas, pulled out of the Bakun region after completing its timber harvesting activities.
Next year, the Bakun region will be flooded to create a 14,750sq/km catchment area, after the 205m high main dam wall is completed.
The logging firm is now on the verge of pulling out its equipment, and will dismantle at least two iron bridges costing RM2mil on its way out, leaving thousands of natives, including Penans, cut off from the outside world.
The bridges, located near the Lusong Laku settlement in Kapit Division, are the most convenient means for the natives to cross the dangerous rivers separating them from urban centres.
They will have to cross the rivers in small boats and then walk for days to get to the nearest towns.
“These rural folk, especially the Penans, are already facing a lot of financial hardship, lack of food and water, and health problems because of the logging operations,” said Billy.
“How are they to travel out to seek medical help, send their children to school or buy daily necessities from the towns?
“Their forests have been ravaged by these loggers, who must be accountable and help these Penans, not just leave and dismantle the bridges. It is very selfish of them,’’ he added.
Lusong Laku Penan chief Tinggan Jate told The Star that they had appealed to the timber camp management, but to no avail.
“They said the decision to dismantle the bridges was made by their bosses (based in the company’s headquarters in Sibu). They are just carrying out orders,’’ said Tinggan.
Borneo, the world’s third largest island, is divided among Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. I would like to think, however, that the best of Borneo can be found in the two Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak.
If you have three weeks of backpacking in Borneo, where should you go? Where should you start?
I guess you can start the tour from Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of the Malaysian state of Sabah. You can access Kota Kinabalu either from Malaysia’s KL International Airport or Singapore’s Changi Airport. Budget carrier AirAsia also flies to Kota Kinabalu from these two airports.
Here are 14 things you can do in Borneo but first a brief disclaimer. This is neither a definitive nor a comprehensive guide as it only touches on tourist attractions in Sabah. Please check with Sabah Tourism or local tour agents for a more information.
This blog has no business relations with tour agents mention in this entry.
Without further ado, here are the 14 things you can do in Borneo
Assuming that you start your tour in Kota Kinabalu, you can check these out:
1. Explore the city on your arrival, go to the museum, night market, Gaya Street Sunday bazaar or laze on the seafront.
2. Visit Monsopiad Cultural Villagefor a unique cultural experience. Located 20 minutes from Kota Kinabalu, the village is a traditional as well as a historical site maintained by the descendants of the feared and legendary Kadazan head-hunter warrior Monsopiad. His trophies of 42 skulls and a thigh bone are still kept at the village, in a hut called the House of Skulls.
3. Visit Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, about 15-20 minutes by speed boat ride. The park is a cluster of five islands — Pulau Gaya, Pulau Sapi, Pulau Manukan, Pulau Mamutik and Pulau Sulug. You can dive, snorkel and learn how to scuba dive there. You can also do seawalking in Pulau Sapi where you’d get to walk on the sea bed as though you are walking on land.
From Kota Kinabalu you can plan your trip to:
Mt Kinabalu
4. Climb Mt Kinabalu (requires 2 days minimum). Mt Kinabalu is Borneo and Malaysia’s highest mountain.
The 4,092.5-metre mountain is used to be the highest mountain in Southeast Asia until someone pointed out that the Hkakabo Razi, at 5,881m in northern Myanmar or Burma, is the tallest mountain in the region. Myanmar is of course a Southeast Asian country.
So we now say Mt Kinabalu is the highest mountain between the Himalayas and New Guinea. The mountain is the central piece of the Kinabalu National Park, a World Heritage Site, located about an hour’s drive from Kota Kinabalu.
5. Take a bath at Poring Hot Spring after the climb. The hot spring is located 40 minutes drive from the Kinabalu National Park.
You can also plan your trip (after climbing Mt Kinabalu or even before) to:
6. Klias Proboscis Monkey Cruise , a 2-in-1 excursion, where you are taken on a boat along the Klias River (two hours drive from Kota Kinabalu) to see proboscis monkey and then as night sets in, treat yourself with spectacular display of nature’s own neon lights — thousands of fireflies lighting up trees by the river. More info here.
Proboscis monkey... photo by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen, via Wikipedia
By now, you would have spent about eight days of your trip. Now it’s time to take a flight to Sandakan (or six hours by land) to experience Borneo’s wildlife adventure. Sandakan can take you approximately five days to cover. Things to do in Sandakan:
7. Visit the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre. To many tourists, going here is among the main reasons — to some, the only reason — why they come to Borneo. Make sure you reach this centre by 9.45am in time for the orang utan feeding time at 10am. The orang utan are fed again at 3pm.
Why must you come during feeding time? Because that’s the time you’d get to see these men of the forest emerging from their jungle habitat.
There will be a video show after that and it is recommended that you go and watch it. It is enlightening, to me at least. More info here.
8. After seeing the orang utan, you can proceed to the Rainforest Rediscovery Centre not too far from Sepilok. It is dubbed as the most accessible rainforest in Sabah. More info here.
9. Visit Selingan Turtle Island and see marine life, turtles lying eggs and so on. You can also contribute to the conservation of this planet’s turtles by helping to release young turtles to the ocean.
10. Explore Sabah largest limestone and bird nests cave called Gomantung Cave.
11. Join Oxbow lake cruise for another wildlife excursion.
For more information about what you can do in Sandakan, the available tour packages and so on, refer here.
From Sandakan, you can access either Semporna or Lahad Datu, both about two hours by land:
12. Ah, time flies. It going into the third week already. If you are a diver, diving in Sipadan is a must.
You haven’t seen anything yet if you haven’t dive in Sipadan. Maybe that’s an exaggeration and coming from a non-diver, you need not take my word for it. But you should really take Jacques Cousteau’s word seriously.
13. If you are not a diver, and want to see Sabah’s own version of the Amazon rainforest, you should really come to Danum Valley Conservation Area in Lahad Datu. There’s a jungle lodge there.
It is an ancient jungle, minus T-Rex and co, of course. There is also an ancient burial ground which is not really a burial ground but rather a place where the dead in their timber coffin are stashed away in caves.
14. I guess, by now you have seen most of the major attractions Sabah has to offer. By now your three weeks is almost over. You can now return to Kota Kinabalu to catch your flight back.
However, if you still have a day to spare, you can make a quick dash to the northern part of Sabah to the village of Tinangol where you can see the traditional longhouse community.
That’s three weeks for you… and you still haven’t discovered the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Well, you can come back later for another three weeks of experiencing Borneo from Sarawak, the Land of the Hornbills. Lots of amazing things there… limestone landscape, people, world’s biggest cave and so on.
The panel of experts has chosen 28 Official Finalists for the New Seven Wonders of Nature, eliminating 49 other sites, including Sipadan Island. Below is the screenshot of those which made it to the final stage of voting to choose the New Seven Wonders of Nature.
List of 28 finalists for the New Seven Wonders of Nature
The 28 finalists are: The Amazon, Angel Falls, Bay of Fundy, Black Forest, Bu Tinah Shoals, Cliffs of Moher, Dead Sea, El Yunque, Galapagos, Grand Canyon, Breat Barrier Reef, Halong Bay, Iguazu Falls, Jeita Grotto, Jeju Island, Kilimanjaro, Komodo Park, the Maldives, Masurian Lake District, Matterhorn/Cervino, Milford Sound, Mud Volcanoes, Puerto Princesa Underground River, Sundarbans, Table Mountain, Uluru, Vesuvius and Yushan.
The 28 were chosen based on the following criteria:
Unique beauty of the nominated site
Diversity and distribution (accounted for in 7 groups)
Ecological significance (in terms of either stand-alone eco-systems and/or their significance for human beings)
Historical legacy (relation that human beings and/or indigenous populations have or have had with the site)
Geo-location (even distribution of the 28 Official Finalists between all continents)
We are disappointed… but still, Sipadan is a wonder of its own. Kudos to the Sabah Tourism and Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun for a hugely successful campaign during the first round of voting.
Writer Tim Kinseth travelled to Belaga, an upriver district in Sarawak, and wrote an article in the Time magazine about how he felt that things were not quite as it used to be.
A man beheaded his enemy’s five-year-old son in what The Star newspaper reported as a result of a feud between two families.
The incident took place in Lahad Datu in the east coast of Sabah, the Malaysian state in northern Borneo, on Wednesday.
The boy’s head was allegedly chopped off by his father’s enemy, who then placed it in a bucket before fleeing the scene with his wife and daughter at 4pm on Wednesday, the report says.
Lahad Datu acting district police chief Deputy Supt Lee Chee Yong said yesterday that police were looking for the 27-year-old suspect, who was living in the same house as the victim and his parents.
“Our investigations indicate that the parents of the boy and the suspect had a longstanding feud,” he said.
The boy’s parents were not at home during the incident.
This is a sticky post and will remain sticky until midnight of July 21, the day the panel of experts will announce 28 of the 77 nominees for the Official Finalists voting stage.
I will also try to carry a live blogging of the announcement of the 28 finalists which will be made on July 21 at 12.07pm GMT or about 8.07pm Malaysian standard time.
The live blogging is already going live. Please feel free to participate in the discussion. [UPDATE: Live blogging session is now closed]
WWF-Malaysia’s Borneo Species Programme team has captured images of Sumatran rhino, one of the world’s most endangered species.
The team said the pictures strengthen “the argument to sustainably manage the forests” in the Hearts of Borneo, where the pictures were taken.
“The future of rhinos in Borneo now depends on how seriously the forest reserves can be managed sustainably with effective monitoring carried out and supported by appropriate activities,” said Raymond Alfred, the senior manager of the programme.
Experts estimated that there are only about 30 rhinos left in the wild in Borneo, mostly in Sabah.
Alfred said that the rhinos’ key habitat in this forest may still or could be connected; especially between the Tabin Wildlife Reserve and Lower Kinabatangan River region.
“However, further conversion of the natural forests, especially those located adjacent to swamp-mangrove forests, into mono-plantation (particularly oil palm) would further eliminate the important corridor connecting these two key rhino areas,” he added.
Alfred said that the rhinos’ key habitat in this forest may still or could be connected; especially between the Tabin Wildlife Reserve and Lower Kinabatangan River region.