Logging still threatens Bornean forest once envisioned as an Indigenous-led peace park

A report by Bruno Manser Fonds and allied civil society groups says the Upper Baram Forest Area in Malaysian Sarawak, once envisioned since 2009 as a community-managed Baram Peace Park, was instead granted as a 170,000-hectare timber concession to Borneoland Timber Resources in 2024. Community observers tallied more than 160 logging trucks leaving the forest monthly between March and May 2025, worth an estimated $2.6 million a month, with logging documented near a mountain peak significant to Penan heritage.

The Sarawak forest department says the project was always meant to be a mixed-use “integrated landscape management area” rather than a fully protected park, and disputes that Bruno Manser Fonds speaks for most local communities. Indigenous rights group Keruan counters that logging is ongoing and spreading to nearby villages, while promised roads and a longhouse for one affected village have not materialized.

Key funders, including Bruno Manser Fonds and the city of Basel, withdrew financial support after the concession became public, though Japan and the Sarawak state government together still have roughly $289,000 invested through the International Tropical Timber Organization.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.