The Sarawak forest department has described as misleading and inaccurate claims made by an international rights group in a report published earlier this year on resistance by an Iban community in the interior to logging activities.
The department accused the group, Human Rights Watch, of deliberately excluding clarifications provided by the department and of appearing to be acting on behalf of an individual rather than representing the collective voices of local communities.
“Such actions risk creating conflict among communities from the same origins,” the department said, Dayak Daily reported.
The Human Rights Watch report, published on May 4, centres on Rumah Jeffery, an Iban longhouse deep in the rainforest, which it claims was encroached and harassed by a logging company.
The report alleged that the Sarawak government granted the logging company a lease to establish a timber plantation that overlaps with the eastern half of Rumah Jeffery’s territory without the community’s consent.
In the report, HRW alleged that the state did not uphold the land laws and that the forestry department issued an eviction order against the community in October 2022.
However, the department denied the claims in the report and accused HRW of deliberately excluding clarifications provided by the department.
