Friends of the Earth today launches a campaign to persuade UK investment fund managers to dis-invest from a company planning to build a huge hydro-electric dam which will destroy the rainforest homelands of native people in Borneo [1]. UK investment companies are known to hold several million shares in Ekran Berhad, the company which will build the dam, making 7000 people homeless [2].

Native people's leaders have called on the government of Malaysia to cancel plans to construct the dam at Bakun, on the river Baram, in the Malaysian State of Sarawak, Borneo, which will flood an area of 700 square kilometres [3].

The project will be built by Malaysian company Ekran Berhad, which has already started clearing rainforest in the area that is to be flooded [4].

A declaration signed by forty tribal leaders says that native peoples have "not been involved in any discussions or negotiations concerning the project", and that they do not agree with plans to resettle them.

Simon Counsell, Forests Campaigner for Friends of the Earth said;

"UK investors might be horrified to learn that they are helping finance an act of ecological vandalism and the abuse of native peoples rights, and should withdraw funds from Ekran. The Bakun dam should be put on hold until a proper assessment of the ecological and social impacts has been carried out".

Representatives of Kayan, Kenyah, Penan, Lahanan and Ukit people have said that they "shall not part" with the lands which were granted to them during British Colonial rule.

Malaysian environmentalists have said that they are "appalled" by a Malaysian Government decision to approve total destruction of rainforest in the area to be flooded before the full environmental impacts of the project had been investigated [5].

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

[1] The Bakun dam has been a controversial project since it was first proposed in 1962. The project was revived in the 1980s, but was again shelved in 1990, a decision which the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr Mahathir, said was "proof that Malaysia cared about the environment". According to the project plans, some 7000 people will have to be resettled to accommodate the dam and reservoir.

[2] Several of the major investment houses are known or believed to have major holdings in Ekran. These include: Perpetual Investment Management Services Ltd, Invesco Mim, Abbey Life, Barclays (BZW) and Scottish Equitable.

[3] 'Bakun Declaration', signed at Umo Daro, Balui, Sarawk, 9th April 1995, by 40 representatives of native communities who will be affected by the Bakun dam project.

[4] Ekran Berhad was granted the contracts for the project without having tendered for it. The company is expected to earn several hundred million dollars just from the sale of tropical hardwood trees to be cleared from the reservoir area.

[5] Malaysia's Department of the Environment has approved the first part of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the project, which relates only to the clearing of the area to be flooded by the reservoir. Two further EIAs, one each for the dam itself and the transmission which will carry electricity to other parts of Malaysia, have not yet been completed.

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