by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 27, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
The world’s third largest mining company, Rio Tinto, and a local financial and construction firm, Cahya Mata Sarawak (CMS), have cancelled plans for a $2 billion aluminum smelter to be constructed in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The cancellation calls into question Sarawak’s plan to build a dozen massive dams—known as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative—that were proposed, in part, to provide power to the massive aluminum smelter. However, the mega-dam proposal has been heavily criticized for its impact on Sarawak’s rivers, rainforest and indigenous people.
Rio Tinto and CMS stated that the project had been dropped because power supply terms could not be agreed on. The smelter would have produced 1.5 million tons of aluminum annually. According to Jacynthe Cote, chief executive of Rio Tinto’s Alcan aluminum division, there were no hard feelings over the cancellation.
“Looking into the future, we remain interested in development opportunities that may arise within the state and the country,” he said.
Beyond the internal decisions, the cancellation immediately puts Sarawak’s dam building plans under new scrutiny. After long delays and cost overruns, one of the dozen dams has already been completed, the 2,400 megawatt Bakun dam. The dam reportedly displaced around 10,000 indigenous people and flooded 70,000 hectares of rainforest (about the size of Singapore). By itself, the Bakun dam produces twice as much power as the entire state of Sarawak. Despite this, a second dam, the 900 megawatt Murum dam, is currently under construction.
Sarawak’s government, under Abdul Taib Mahmud or “Taib”, has been aggressively pushing implementation of the SCORE plan and fending off criticism, stating that the state would need the additional power for the Rio Tinto-CMS smelter.
“Rio Tinto’s decision [to cancel the smelter] proves that the Taib government’s irresponsible economic policies have completely failed. There is no need to build another twelve dams in the state as envisaged by the Taib government,” reads a statement from the Bruno Manser Fund, a group that works with indigenous people in Sarawak. “All these corruption-driven dam plans that would only benefit the Taib family’s construction companies must come tho a halt now.”
Local opposition against the dams has been fierce. Last fall indigenous groups, local people, and domestic NGOs established the Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network in order to fight the dams. In addition, hundreds of land lawsuits have been filed against the proposed dams.
The Bruno Manser Fund is calling on the Sarawak government to stop construction on the Murum dam and cancel all other dam projects.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 10, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Colonialism & Conquest, Indigenous Autonomy
By Ahni, Intercontinental Cry
It’s no mere coincidence that Sarawak is one of the most impoverished states in Malaysia. For more than 30 years the governments of Malaysia and Sarawak have been far too busy ransacking the region’s precious rainforest to secure and strengthen what has been there for thousands of years.
That’s because development in Sarawak has always been about making money; and as any real capitalist knows, the more money you have to spread around, the less you have for your self and your friends and family.
Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud knows this well. After all, Minster Taib, whose name is now synonymous with corruption, has made a big part of his fortune at the expense of the land and people of Sarawak.
The decimation of Sarawak continues even as you read these words; and if Minster Taib gets his way, it will only get worse in the months and years ahead.
The government of Sarawak is going all out for a new mass-industrialization project known as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative. Under SCORE, the government intends to build at least twelve new hydro dams in Sarawak in order to provide 28,000 MW of electricity for a yet-to-be-determined industrial complex in Sarawak.
Describing the risks of SCORE, the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) says,
“The ecological consequences of the new dams would be disastrous. River and forest landscapes which exist nowhere else in the world apart from Borneo would be destroyed for ever, and the animal and plant world would be threatened. Apart from that, dams cause the emission of large quantities of greenhouse gases, which fuel climate change even further.”
A Switzerland-based NGO, the Bruno Manser Fund is leading a campaigning against the SCORE initiative in coordination with a coalition of NGOs from around the world.
The social and cultural consequences of SCORE would be equally disastrous, says BMF. For instance, just one of the proposed dams–the 1000 MW Baram dam–would drown approximately 412 km2 (41200 hectares) of rainforest and 26 indigenous villages along with it. That will result in the displacement of up to 20,000 people.
Speaking to the future, Peter L., a Kenyah whose village would be lost to the Baram dam, compares the Chief Minister’s plan to “A tsunami created by human beings” that will “pick up speed and destroy everything: rivers, forest, harvest, villages, simply everything!”
“It is, however, not only the forest and fields as the lifeblood of Baram culture that are threatened,” reiterates BMF campaigner Annina Aeberli, in the NGO’s 2012 newsletter, Tong Tana. “The indigenous peoples of the Baram region are also lamenting the loss of their history and their social cohesion, which it defined strongly through their ancestors.”
As Maria, another Kenyah from Long Anap said to BMF, “Those of us alive today can at least run away when the water comes, but what are the dead going to do?” Thomas M., retired secondary teacher from the village of Long San, echoes Maria’s concerns. With tears in his eyes, he said, “my father died in 2002. I won’t let it happen that they flood his grave, so that my father dies a second time. I’m going to fight against the dam.”
Read more from Intercontinental Cry: http://intercontinentalcry.org/indigenous-peoples-say-no-to-disaster-development-in-sarawak/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 26, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Protests & Symbolic Acts
By Agence France Presse
China currently supplies about 95 percent of world demand for rare earths, which are used in high-tech equipment from iPods to missiles and have seen prices soar in recent years.
Lynas hopes to begin operations within months, producing an initial 11,000 tonnes of rare earths a year and effectively breaking the Chinese stranglehold on the materials.
But more than 5,000 people, many wearing green and holding banners reading “Stop pollution, stop corruption, stop Lynas”, gathered in Kuantan to call for the plant to shut down, chanting: “We want Lynas to close down”.
Lee Tan, an activist who helped organise the rally, said: “The plant is dangerous because it produces huge amounts of waste that is radioactive”, adding residents were worried the waste could leak into the ground and water.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim also attended the protest and his colleague Fuziah Salleh said the plant should be relocated “in the middle of the desert”.
“The green rally is in support of sustainable development and Lynas is definitely not a sustainable development,” she told AFP.
Read more from The Australian
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Feb 14, 2012 | Biodiversity & Habitat Destruction, Indigenous Autonomy
By Jeremy Hance / Mongabay
Last October indigenous groups, local people, and domestic NGOs formed the Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network to fight the planned construction of a dozen dams in the Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. The coalition opposes the dam-building plans, known as the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) initiative, due to its impacts on indigenous and river communities, the destruction of pristine rainforest, and the degradation of the state’s rivers.
“At the moment, there is no coordinated effort by the indigenous communities and civil societies to campaign against the construction of these destructive mega-dam projects. Therefore there is an urgent need to initiate a state, national and international campaign against these mega-dams,” Save Sarawak’s Rivers Network’s chairperson, Peter Kallang, said in a press conference this week as reported by Free Malaysia Today. He noted that of paramount importance was to reach out to those directly impacted by the dams.
Five foreign NGOs from the U.S. and EU have also announced support of the nascent coalition, including The Bruno Manser Fund, International Rivers, Borneo Project, Rainforest Action Network (US) and the Rainforest Foundation Norway.After long delays and cost overruns, one of the dozen dams has already been completed, the 2,400 megawatt Bakun dam. The dam displaced around 10,000 indigenous people and flooded 70,000 hectares of rainforest.
While the Sarawak government has argued that the dams are needed to power the state, the Bakun dam alone produces more than double the power used by Sarawak at peak times. The additional power is likely to go to a planned aluminum smelter run by Cahaya Mata Sarawak (CMS) and Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. Another dam, the 900 megawatt Murum dam, is currently under construction.
“The construction of the dams will not bring development to the people directly affected but it does bring severe and permanent damages to the whole environment and to the community at large,” Kallang said. “Development for the people must be for the immediate and above all, long term good of all the people and not just a few, who own shares in power generation and big corporations.”
Proponents of dam building have argued that they are “green” energy sources. However dams built in the tropics have been shown to release massive amounts of the methane, a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon dioxide, due to rotting vegetation trapped in the reservoir. A study last year found that a dam in Laos was still a significant source of greenhouse gases a decade after being built, emitting between 1.2 and 3.2 gigagrams of carbon annually. Another dam, however, was no longer a source of emissions after 40 years.
Save Sarawak Rivers will be holding a conference this week in Miri, including the presentation of papers by eight key speakers.
