On October 20, 2022, Jeffery Nang, the big cheese of the Rumah Jeffrey folks in Malaysia, rocked up to a community shindig and got handed a letter by a government guy in Sarawak, a state on the Borneo island in Malaysia. The letter was a “get out” notice for Nang and the 60-odd members of Rumah Jeffrey, who are part of the wider Indigenous Iban tribe of Borneo. The official note said, “skedaddle from the forest within 30 days or else face the music with charges if anyone sticks around.”
The eviction notice claimed that the Rumah Jeffrey gang were breaking the law by living in a “protected forest.” They had less than a month to wipe out all their crops, knock down their digs, and clear out all their stuff, pronto. But Nang had a hunch that there was more to the story. Five moons ago, Nang had a visit from a Zedtee Sdn Bhd company honcho, a branch of a logging company called Shin Yang Group. According to Nang, the company bigwig mentioned they needed some of their forest for wood. Sarawak timber is often shipped off to places like the US, Japan, and South Korea where it’s sold as furniture, flooring, and wood pellets for fuel.
Nang claimed that there was no deal with Zedtee about the forest or any relocation or cash. Instead, his people had been butting heads with the authorities for almost three years as they pushed back against the forced eviction without their say-so or pay. Human Rights Watch recently dropped a bombshell report that the Rumah Jeffrey crew are getting the shaft, going against Malaysia’s laws and their international rights as Indigenous people to have a say in what happens on their turf.
Various studies have shown that deforestation is a key player in climate change, leading to less rain, more carbon dioxide in the air, and hotter temps. Protecting Indigenous land rights not only saves forests but also shields biodiversity. Despite promises to halt deforestation, the issue keeps getting worse. Luciana Téllez Chávez, a big shot researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the Rumah Jeffrey ordeal shines a light on the broader problem of Indigenous rights being brushed off in the area. Sarawak has fewer legal protections for Indigenous peeps compared to other states, and even the few rules in place aren’t being followed, according to Chávez.
“There is a sense that a lot of the deforestation that happens in Sarawak is legal just because the law is so permissive of this type of activity,” she said. “What we’re trying to show is that even the modest protections that exist for Indigenous lands are not respected and this is one example of that.” Not really sure why this matters, but there you have it.
Indigenous folks who want to stay put need to prove their claim through a special colonial-era aerial survey, but the survey itself is under wraps. “That’s just absurd,” Chávez chimed in. “It’s just incredibly tough for communities to stand up for their rights because all this crucial environmental info is hush-hush.” Human Rights Watch teamed up with uni eggheads to get their mitts on the survey data and show that even by that arbitrary standard, the Rumah Jeffrey crew have a legit claim to the land.
