MIRI, February 19, 2022 - SAVE Rivers Sarawak chairman Peter Kallang today expressed his fears that opening up swaths of areas along the state’s border with Kalimantan will lead to environmental and human rights disasters committed in the name of development while ignoring all important areas of sustainability.
He was responding to Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Awang Tengah Ali Hassan’s statement that the state had requested the federal government to assist Sarawak to open up large areas along the border areas as Indonesia will be moving its capital from Jakarta, Java to Nusantara on the island of Borneo.
According to Awang Tengah, Nusantara will present tremendous opportunities for economic progress for Sarawak, adding that the state needs to open up the border with more roads and immigration points.
“With all due respect to Awang Tengah, I sincerely hope that this proposal will not mean another environmental and human rights disaster committed in the name of progress but solely for economic gains while ignoring all other very important areas of sustainability.
“We have seen it happening almost in all over Sarawak, where provisional leases are issued for monoculture plantations, logging concessions, mining, sand dredging,” Kallang said.
He said there will be trespassing customary right lands without prior consultation or commensurate restitution.
He said there will be no transparency and accountability by parties in areas like the environmental and social impact studies.
“We are also experiencing extreme impact from heavy rains and dry seasons, floods, erosion, land slide, river pollution and sedimentation of the riverbed while farms are destroyed livestock died, homes and other properties are destroyed.
Awang Tengah recently met in Putrajaya with Minister in the Prime Minister Department (Economic Development) Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed and Sabah and Sarawak Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Maximus Ongkili.
