As the sun sets on the timber industry in Sarawak and the state government energetically seeks to diversify and broaden its revenue base via land development, land rights is emerging as a major political issue, providing fodder for the opposition and NGO activists. Already, oil palm plantations, large-scale sago farms, pepper and aquaculture enterprises increasingly dot the Sarawak landscape.

Land development is seen as the logical future for Sarawak but this means taking on time-and-again the various tribal communities on their home turf, which sprawls over some 1.5 million hectares premium land long designated under native customary rights (NCR). Protests against arbitrarily imposed development on native land, muted in the past, have become vociferous of late judging from blockades, murders, arrests and jailings.

The Sarawak government continues to draw up plans to step up the tempo of land development. The government wants the state to emerge as a leading source of industrial commodities such as oil palm, sago, rubber and pepper. Oil palm in particular is being hailed as the golden crop of Sarawak. The state government in recent months has approved 350,000 hectares of NCR land for oil palm cultivation. This will bring the total area under the crop to nearly 650,000 hectares. Elsewhere, over 800,000 hectares of land have been identified as suitable for rice and other crops in which the state government wants to achieve self-sufficiency.

The state government this year set up a revolving fund of RM200 million to settle compensation claims of those whose lands will be acquired for development. However, a question mark remains on how much of the money will actually go to land owners who have held these properties since time immemorial, and how much to the fly-by-night operators and Johnnies-come-lately who move in and out of areas earmarked for development and make a quick killing in the process. Gullible rural folk ever fearful of losing their ancestral land to the 'pemerintah' can be easily conned by these shrewd operators to part with their property for a pittance. About RM108 million was paid out last year alone in land compensation claims.

"Compensation for land can end up in the pockets of those armed with 'insider information' who buy up land cheaply in areas which have been earmarked by the state government for acquisition," say social activists. "These new land purchasers often go into planting quick growing species, so that they can claim an even bigger compensation for the land when it is acquired for development. It is a racket."

Generally, the politicians paint a picture that plantation schemes, like logging, "upgrade the standard of living and income of the native communities in the affected areas." In reality, the local community by and large do not benefit from these activities that destroy the resources on their land, charge social activists.

Logging, for example, destroys many plant varieties including medicinal plants, while animals and fish have either become threatened or extinct. Bulldozed forests cannot be planted with crops as the soil is compacted and disturbed; crop harvests are reduced and rivers on which the people depend for water becomes polluted. Forest produce becomes scarce and threatens the survival of the people who have depended on it for hundreds of years.

The state government considers all NCR land as 'idle land' in need of large-scale development, to be brought to the native communities in order to alleviate their poverty. This argument was used to promote logging in the 1970s and is now used to justify the introduction of industrial tree plantations. Those who oppose such policies argue that most of the people living in the interior are now worse off than before and urge that their security lies in respecting their land rights and not disenfranchisement by government and corporate interests.

The seeds of the emerging battles over land were sown when the Brooke dynasty of White Rajahs introduced statute law 150 years ago. The process was carried forward when Sarawak became a British crown colony after World War Two and subsequently achieved independence through Malaysia in 1963.

The Forest Ordinance of 1953 classified large areas of forests as Permanent Forests, which extinguished native rights in forest reserves and strictly controlled native activities in general. The legislation sought to curtail shifting cultivation and to reserve the forest lands for timber extraction.

The latest amendment, in the long litany of legislation, provided in May this year for a Native Register of Titles. The individual titles were ostensibly to enhance the market value of these lands in transactions, but in effect they facilitate the acquisition of native land for the development of large-scale plantations.

Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud claimed at a recent state assembly sitting that the state government, in drawing up the bill for the Native Register of Titles, had carried out a six-month study to get public feedback on the Sarawak Land Code.

Taib argued that with the changing native community and the ever-growing population, the old system was no longer viable. "They could do it in the past because the community was small and people knew each other," said Taib, "but with the increase of the population, it is no longer possible for the community leaders to identify and remember everybody in their area.

Therefore, he said, "there was a need to set up the native rights registry which would be carried out in phases. Those who have rights over a piece of land can enter their names in the registry and be protected by the government and this can also be used as evidence of their rights."

Again, this raises questions anew over the classification of NCR land by custom - Adat - into temuda and menoa. Temuda is land close to the longhouse and includes land cleared for farming or left fallow to regenerate into forest. Beyond the temuda is the menoa, an area of communal land for the collection of forest products (fruit, medicinal plants, building materials), hunting, fishing and burial grounds. Menoa is marked by natural boundaries such as rivers, streams, watersheds, mountain ridges or other landmarks. Temuda and menoa combined form the pemakai menoa.

The state government now refuses to recognise NCR on any land that is not continuously cultivated. This has had the effect of discouraging people leaving land fallow and locking people into poor tropical soils from which the nutrients have been depleted, resulting in poorer productivity. Many people are now reluctant to move for fear of losing their land rights even to the plots they currently occupy. Critics say that this increasingly restrictive view of NCR land and changes in legislation over the years has shifted the balance of power over land resources significantly in favour of the state government and corporate interests.

Adat or customary law in Sarawak does not recognise the concept of private ownership of land unlike statute law. The system of usufruct rights allows the individuals to use the land but it is the community as a group that exercises the legal rights. As a native elder states: "The land belongs to the countless numbers who are dead, the few who are living and the multitude of those yet to be born."