For four years the indigenous people of the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan on the island of Borneo have been fighting against destruction of their forest habitat through clearance logging.
Their demands have been ignored by the government and the logging company.
Now the Dayak communities are pleading for international support. You can give yours by your signature to an appeal at www.regenwald.org; the technicalities for signing are shown below.
When hundreds of demonstrators, including jungle people who had come down river by boat, arrived in the provincial capital Putussibau on 21 July, they were met by hundreds of police.
“We were told the logging company had stopped its activities temporarily,” said an activist, “but when we checked later we found logging continuing at full capacity.” The camp of the PT Toras logging company was under heavy police guard.
On the way back the demonstrators were stopped by forestry officials and police not in uniform.
“They filmed us with their mobiles and threatened us with automatic weapons before they let us go.”
The forest dwellers belong to the Bukat, Kayaan, Samus und Taman Semangkok tribes, whose villages are on the banks of the Mendalam River, close to the border with Malaysia.
It is a fertile, biodiverse habitat that adequately fed its inhabitants.
How to sign:
www.regenwald.org, Borneo story, scroll down
First box is for your gender or other entity: Herr=Mr, Frau=Ms, Familie=Family, Firma=Company
Vorname: Given name
Nachname: Surname
Firma: Company
E-Mail:
Straße: Street Hausnr House number
PLZ: Post code
Ort: Place name
Staat: Country (Australien if you're sending from Australia)
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