It appears that Sarawak’s timber tycoon Hii family has been hiring illegal Indonesian workers to conduct logging operations in the internationally protected area of Ba Data Bila in the Baram region which the Sarawak Forestry Department has denied were taking place.

On September 11th, according to notices by the Immigration Department, a swoop on the area resulted in the arrest of 25 workers, 10 of whom have been detained for being illegal immigrants without work permits.

Strangely, although the earlier denials were blasted across the local media (which is largely controlled by timber companies) there has been no reporting of this latest embarrassing development.

Since way back in June global environmental groups have raised the alarm over the trashing of this supposedly protected forest area encompassed by the Penan Peace Park initiative in Baram.

This project has been funded by international contributions in support of native communities who have fought to save their forests and is officially sponsored and protected by the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), currently chaired by a Malaysian national.

However, Sarawak’s Forest Department and its director Datuk Hamden Mohamad went on the record to deny there was any organised logging in the remote area.

Hamden was adamant the activity detected by villagers merely represented the rolling out of some ‘community projects’ in the area as requested by the state appointed headman.

Tellingly, Hamden also told the Borneo Post that none other than the state premier (chief minister) Abang Johari had “agreed that the area be developed” and he criticised the Swiss NGO BMF for complaining that the conservation project, subsidised by international donors largely coordinated by themselves, was being undermined.

The  Forestry Department continues to ignore all basic principles of transparency and accountability, like all Sarawak’s government institutions, by refusing to make concessions and licences publicly available.

Nonetheless, the fact that a licence had indeed been given out has been made blatantly obvious by the presence of the mandatory sign which had been placed in the forest advertising exactly that!

It is known that licences had been offered to the notorious logging giant Samling in the past (owned by the Yaw family who have familial ties with Abang Jo).

However, when the international momentum grew to rescue this scarce remaining area of Sarawak jungle still largely un-destroyed by logging, Samling (which has numerous other interests funded by its early billion dollar profits) handed back the licence.

So, who is behind Borneoland Timber Resources?  It takes little time to find out that the primary shareholder and director is Hii King Chiong, the current driver of the family company that has long ingratiated itself in the corridors of power based in Miri.

It was Hii that got into business with Taib’s sister Raziah Geneid, handed huge chunks of land by the former chief minister in Miri. The family have a history of controversial logging projects supported by licences from the Taibs.  Now it seems clear that Hii is likewise eager to present as a right hand presence for Abang Jo:

Back in July the Taib family paper New Sarawak Tribune featured Hii, together with Raziah and Abang Jo at the opening of a Chinese school in Miri.  If Abang Jo had called for the ‘development’ of the villages of Ba Data Bila was it he who sanctioned the Forestry Department’s transfer of the former Samling licence to Borneoland Timber Resources?

This weekend, a spokesman from the Bruno Manser Fund, which has painstakingly led the drive to protect the Baram forest area, scoffed at the claims by the Forest Department that this was not a logging operation. They sent pictures of timber trucks exiting the area:

If the Immigration Department has now raided the camp and identified illegal workers who have been transported into the distant jungle to work on logging that plainly violates the terms of the protected area, asks the NGO, how is it only the impoverished and powerless foreign workers who are now being punished?

What will happen to those who hired them, namely the powerful Hii family who had ignored all protests against their activity together with the Forestry Department?

It was a police report lodged on behalf of native protestors by the PKR lawyer and local party leader Roland Engan which had at last drawn the attention of the federal law enforcers after studious refusals from the Forestry Department to become engaged.

Since June, the relevant officials have claimed to be too busy to reply to repeated letters from local NGOS. The same has applied to the Malaysian Director of the ITTO, Sheam Satkuru.

This despite the large sums of foreign funding raised to underpin the project that is officially supported by the ITTO:

A separate letter in August from residents of 15 Penan communities was also sent to Abang Jo, Mr Hii and Ms Satkuru and addressed to the Managing Director of Borneoland Timber Resources:

We, the undersigned community representatives from the villages of Ba Data Bila, Long Lamam and other villages in the Baram area protest and strongly object to the illegal logging activities carried out by the contractor Yaya Jaya Sdn. Bhd. (Yaya Jaya) on BLTR’s behalf. 

We are shocked by the large area of forest around Ba Data Bila village that has been cleared and devastated by Yaya Jaya’s workers because that area is our customary primary forest.

2. The wooden sign board erected by your company clearly states that the logging operation belongs to BLTR and the logging activities undertaken by your contractor, Yaya Jaya.

Your employees have been at Ba Data Bila for several months now.  They should be able to verify the devastation and state of destruction that has occurred.   BLTR is responsible for this significant large scale environmental damages that has and will affect our lives for a long period of time..”