Word: sarawak
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Nearly 90% of the lumber now comes from Sarawak and Sabah, the two Malaysian states on Borneo. On paper at least, Malaysia, a well-off country with a relatively small population (17.4 million), has a model plan for the "sustainable development" of its forests. The reality is that neither the overall plan nor specific regulations have had much impact, and logging operations continue essentially uncontrolled. "In theory everything is fine," says S.C. Chin, a Malaysian forestry expert. "But 20 years ago, Thailand and the Philippines said everything was fine too, and now they have largely been stripped...
Environmentalists fear that the same thing will happen in Sarawak and Sabah, which contain some of the oldest rain forests on earth. Chin estimates that careless, wholesale cutting will denude the remaining forests of their commercial timber within as little as seven years. Local officials have given loggers access to an estimated 95% of Sarawak's forests that are outside existing or proposed parks and protected areas. Even those tracts are coveted by corrupt politicians. According to Harrison Ngau, a Sarawak native being held under house arrest for taking part in antilogging protests, some forests have been excised from protected...
Many of the tribal blockades have been set up on the Limbang road, which is one of the main logging arteries in Sarawak. Construction of the road during the mid-1980s was partly financed with a 200 million yen ($842,000) low- interest loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency ostensibly to benefit the very people who are today fighting the logging traffic. Since JICA is not supposed to give funds to support Japanese commercial ventures abroad, the road has provided ammunition for those who argue that increased foreign aid by the Japanese will only further jeopardize the global environment...
...commemorate the birth of Jesus, 250 Lisu tribesmen in Thailand's mountainous Chiang Rai province will assemble this week for three days of prayer and movies about Christ. In Sarawak, a Malaysian province on the island of Borneo, Dyak tribesmen one generation removed from head-hunting will gather in longhouses along the turbid Rajang River for caroling. Similar scenes will take place in impoverished villages in Guatemala, Brazil, Botswana and India. In many cases, the celebrations will be organized and guided by Western missionaries. Says Timothy