Deforestation is expanding again in the tropical rainforests of Borneo. And indigenous peoples are not backing down from defending their land. The timber company PT Mayawana Persada is expanding its plantations in the forests of the Dayak indigenous people of Kualan Hilir. PT Mayawana Persada is linked to the conglomerate controlled by Sukanto Tanoto, which also owns APRIL (Asia Pacific Resources International Limited), one of the two major paper producers in Indonesia.
The Indonesian NGO LinkAR Borneo reports that on June 29th the community managed to stop the army of bulldozers arrived to to destroy the forests to develop timber plantations, seized the keys of 13 of them and drove them to the local police station. They demanded the government take action against the company which had previously committed to returning their traditional land, but instead the company kept expanding.
In 2021 alone the timber company PT Mayawana Persada clear-cut more than five thousand hectares of natural rainforest, and the protesting communities also highlight the company’s role in evicting traditional communities from their traditional land. According to a recent report by AidEnvironment, PT Mayawana Persada cleared 6,700 hectares of rainforests in 2022 alone.
In May 2023, members of several West Kalimantan communities, in Indonesian Borneo, held a symbolic demonstration against land grabbing by a timber company linked to the owner of Indonesia’s notorious paper producer APRIL. The indigenous communities of Gensaok, Lelayang Village Kualan Hilir and Selimbun Hamlet Community of Sekucing Kualan Village, Simpang, along with the Gensaok Bersatu Farmers Group, gathered to demand support from the Indonesian government to reclaim their stolen land, and to have ancestral land mapped and recognised.
During the demonstration, protestors dressed in red and released a declaration of five key points, including a call for the operating licence of PT Mayawana Persada to be revoked. In the absence of positive government intervention or cessation from the company, the Gensaok representatives also declared an intent to join the Marwah Red Army, a collective of mostly Dayak indigenous communities across Borneo that work to protect members’ customs, culture, and to defend them in legal cases. As indigenous communities across Borneo and Indonesia begin to join together in defense of their lands and cultures, they are taking an increasingly strong stance against timber and paper industries that threaten them.
Resistance against PT Mayawana Persada and other companies linked to APRIL, continues to grow and with good reason. Previous investigations have documented APRIL’s involvement in hundreds of conflicts with communities across the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
On May 22nd of this year, EPN, together with a number of partners, released a new investigative report, linking APRIL and its conglomerate Royal Golden Eagle (RGE) Group to a new mega-scale pulp mill in North Kalimantan that is putting some of the world’s largest remaining rainforests at risk. Further expansion in North Kalimantan will also exacerbate land conflicts with indigenous and other local communities.
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