Sarawak is the largest of thirteen states that make up Malaysia and is situated on the island of Borneo, which is shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei and contains some of the oldest tropical rainforest in the world.
Agriculture, logging, mining and oil and gas extraction dominate Borneo's economy. Plans for multiple hydro-electric projects in Sarawak have drawn controversy, as have the much greater publicised issues of palm oil production and logging, both drivers of deforestation.
Malaysia is the second largest producer of Palm oil after Indonesia. According to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board, as of December 2012, palm oil plantation accounted for a total land use of 51,000 km2 in Malaysia. It makes up 77% of agricultural land or about 15% of total land area in Malaysia. Criticism of the Palm oil industry has focused on deforestation, monoculture farming practices and labour exploitation.
Logging, along with Palm oil plantations, are a highly visible cause of environmental damage. Crude logging techniques, illegal cutting, construction of logging roads and timber camps all contribute to a depreciation of ecosystems and destruction of habitat upon which local indigenous people and wildlife depend.
The proposed Baram dam project was cancelled in mid 2015 by Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem. With the death of Adenan Satem in early 2017, Sarawak’s indigenous community hopes the new Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Openg will not re-instate the dam’s construction. About 20,000 people in 30 villages would lose their homes or lands to the flooding if the dam was to be built.
These images were made in 2016, and partly facilitated by Save Rivers, a conservation group opposed to the dam which has proposed smaller-scale hydroelectric and solar projects as an alternative to large scale mega dam projects.
