12/10/05 (Sabah Daily Express) - Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia's lucrativepalm oil industry and unabated logging are destroying native lands ineastern Sarawak state, while indigenous people are left in extremepoverty, an environment group said Tuesday.

As logging has encroached for decades on the native lands of the Penan andother indigenous groups, palm oil plantations are a growing menace, saidchair of Friends of the Earth International, Meena Raman.

"What the Sarawak government is doing now is pushing the expansion of oilpalm plantations in Sarawak and the underlying premise for that is it willbring development to the state," said Raman.

"So in places where logging took place, this is being replaced by oil palmplantations, and this is not taking into account the plight of the Penanpeople and other indigeneous communities," she told AFP.

The group in a statement Tuesday called on the Malaysian government torevoke licenses and leases for large-scale plantations located on Penannative lands, and for the cessation of logging.

It said disappearing ancestral lands meant indigenous groups were losingtheir forest-based livelihoods, while little compensation or help wasbeing offered.

"For the past two decades the Malaysian government frequently made variousstatements that financial assistance and facilities have been provided tothe Penans on the pretext of solving their problems.

"However, this assistance and facilities have yet or have failed toimprove the lives or livelihood of the Penans."

The Sarawak Penan Association, a gathering of tribal chiefs, in Julyappealed to the government to respect their rights and addressdegenerating health and living conditions, but little notice was taken,said Raman.

She said Friends of the Earth had also launched an international petitionfor the rights of the Penan to be upheld.

Logging is the economic mainstay for Sarawak, on Borneo, while the stategovernment has identified oil palm cultivation as a growth area.

More than 67 percent or 8.22 million hectares of Sarawak's land is undernatural forest cover, according to the state, which argues that itsforestry practices are sustainable.

Malaysia is the world's largest producer of crude palm oil, and interesthas been growing in the industry after the federal government announcedlast month it was investing in three palm biodiesel plants to producealternative fuel. - AFP