- A recently published report by rights groups says that commodities from the Malaysian state of Sarawak should be labeled “high risk” under the new EU deforestation regulations, subjecting exports to additional scrutiny.
- Indigenous and human rights groups point to high rates of deforestation associated with timber and palm oil production in the state, and to alleged violations of human rights, including the right to free, prior and informed consent.
- Rights advocates say they believe the EU deforestation regulations could be a tool to push Sarawak’s timber and agro-industries toward better human rights practices.
A coalition of Indigenous and human rights groups are hoping new European Union trade regulations could help pressure timber and oil palm industries in Malaysia’s Sarawak state into respecting Indigenous land rights and implementing better land-use consent practices.
The international NGO Human Rights Watch and several Sarawak-based organizations say in a new report that rapid deforestation caused by Sarawak’s timber and oil palm businesses should warrant all forestry products from Sarawak being labeled “high risk” under the EU’s Deforestation-Free Product Regulations, or EUDR. This designation would mean elevated scrutiny and a higher rate of inspections on commodities from the state imported into the EU.
Companies in Sarawak have already taken some steps to participate in sustainability certification programs for the timber and palm oil industries, but the terms are voluntary with few repercussions. The EUDR, in contrast, introduces a punishment for not following good practices: missing out on the lucrative European market.
The EU launched its new policy for accepting global forestry products in the European market last June, replacing the previous EU Timber Regulations. The process includes several steps, labeling countries and regions as “low,” “standard” or “high” risk depending on the rate of forest loss and the drivers of deforestation in a particular area. Operators and traders who want to export to the EU must prove their products are deforestation-free or be restricted from the European market. Exporters must also prove their commodities are produced in conditions that respect human rights and comply with local land-use laws and with the right to free, prior and informed consent.
“What I see from the outside is there really is a great rush on the side of the industry trying to meet the requirements of EUDR,” Celine Lim, managing director of the NGO SAVE Rivers, in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, and a signatory to the report, told Mongabay. “We as civil society are now trying to engage all the way up to the top level and say [Indigenous rights] are very important.”
EU nations are major consumers of Malaysian forestry products, with the Netherlands and Germany the second- and third-biggest buyers of Malaysia’s nationally certified timber in 2022. The EU as a whole was the third-largest buyer of Malaysian palm oil last year, buying 1.07 million metric tons.
The EUDR was supposed to go into effect at the end of this year, but the European Commission, the EU executive branch, announced in October that it’s considering new guidelines for implementing the trade restrictions, which, if passed would delay the start of enforcement to the end of 2025.
Lim said that SAVE Rivers and its partners, including RimbaWatch, The Borneo Project and Bruno Manser Fonds, are now raising to the EU their consistent frustrations with Malaysia’s palm oil and timber industries: Sarawak lost more than 419,000 hectares (1.04 million acres) of forest between 2017 and 2022 largely due to these two overlapping industries.
Lim said that SAVE Rivers and its partners, including RimbaWatch, The Borneo Project and Bruno Manser Fonds, are now raising to the EU their consistent frustrations with Malaysia’s palm oil and timber industries. Sarawak lost an estimated 85,100 hectares (210,290 acres) of forest in 2023 alone, according to Global Forest Watch satellite data, with the state shedding about 423,500 hectares (1.04 million acres) of forest cover between 2019 and 2023. While that’s lower than the state’s rate of deforestation in the 2010s, the report alleges that deforestation associated with Sarawak’s timber and oil palm industries jeopardizes large swaths of naturally regenerating forests.
The civil society coalition also says Indigenous residents of Sarawak state rarely have the chance to give their free, prior and informed consent to the projects that affect them.
SAVE Rivers and its staff have also been sued by Sarawak’s largest timber corporation, Samling, after the NGO reported stories from Penan and Kenyah Indigenous communities — a case decried as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, by watchdogs and a U.N. expert. The case was later dropped by Samling.
And while Sarawak’s land laws on paper allow Indigenous communities to claim ancestral land, communities are rarely granted title in practice. Under the law, communities that wish to claim land have to prove they continuously occupied the area since 1958, when an aerial photo survey was undertaken by the British colonial government. This is a particular challenge for Indigenous communities that lived nomadically at that time and left fewer visible traces of their presence than non-Indigenous communities.
Luciana Téllez Chávez, Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher for environment and human rights, said the EUDR would breach its promise to respect human rights and Indigenous protections if it accepted Sarawak’s land policy.
The Sarawak standard, Téllez Chávez said, “was designed to dispossess.”
The report was submitted to Malaysia’s Ministry of Plantation and Commodities in November 2023, and again in May, but Téllez Chávez said they had one meeting with the government in November and then heard no response so far.
The Ministry of Plantation and Commodities accepted questions from Mongabay but had not provided any responses by the time this story was published.
But Lim remained optimistic, saying she’s noticed the industry rushing to learn about EUDR requirements to ensure it retains access to the European market, which is a major consumer of both Sarawak palm oil and timber. She added the EU has been receptive to their concerns so far, hosting stakeholder meetings and launching a “fact-finding mission” or trip to learn more about these industries in Sarawak.
“We’re bringing the fight to their door, we’re showing up in their spaces and in a way its confrontational but it’s also a necessity, [because] at least we see now some acknowledgment and a commitment to engage.”
Banner image: Deforestation for oil palm plantation in Sarawak. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
Red flags but no repercussions for ‘certified’ Malaysian logger Samling: Report
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