Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maha­rash­tra, Mad­hya Pradesh, Chhat­tis­garh, Jhark­hand, and Oris­sa wit­ness chak­ka jams, ras­ta rokos, dhar­nas, mor­chas and oth­er protests.

Today in State cap­i­tals and dis­trict head­quar­ters across the coun­try, many tens of thou­sands of peo­ple joined mor­chas, dhar­nas and ras­ta rokos with the fol­low­ing demands:

* Halt For­est Depart­ment inter­fer­ence, exclu­sion of rights hold­ers, and vio­la­tion of peo­ple’s rights under under the For­est Rights Act;
* Recog­nise our right and pow­er to pro­tect and con­trol our forests and resources;
* Stop ille­gal­ly destroy­ing forests and rob­bing us of our resources through diver­sion for pri­vate com­pa­nies and large projects.

In a tragedy, four pro­test­ers were killed and two seri­ous­ly injured in Devala, Udaipur Dis­trict, when a lor­ry hit the pro­test­ers as their ras­ta roko was end­ing. The organ­i­sa­tion is pur­su­ing the case to ensure that the dri­ver and oth­er con­cerned per­sons are arrest­ed and brought to jus­tice. Those who lost their lives in the strug­gle will be hon­oured as mar­tyrs.

Protests took place in the fol­low­ing States:

Rajasthan: Chak­ka jams took place in Ban­swa­da, Dun­garpur, Udaipur, Prat­ap­garh Dis­tricts, in total in 12 loca­tions. More than 6,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed. The ras­ta rokos includ­ed a block­ade on the Nation­al High­way at Chind­wara More.

Oris­sa: More than 5,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in a chak­ka jam in Bhubanesh­war, shut­ting down the main cross­roads in the city for more than two hours. Peo­ple joined the demon­stra­tion from across the state. Protests also took place in major dis­trict head­quar­ters.

Maha­rash­tra: Ras­ta rokos took place through­out the State, in sev­er­al loca­tions in Thane Dis­trict (on the Ahmed­abad – Mum­bai nation­al high­way), in two places in Raigad dis­trict, in 4 places in Nan­dur­bar dis­trict (ras­ta rokos will con­tin­ue over the next three days in oth­er loca­tions in the dis­trict).

Mad­hya Pradesh: Approx­i­mate­ly 4,000 peo­ple from 20 dis­tricts joined a chak­ka jam in Bhopal for sev­er­al hours. More than 3,000 peo­ple court­ed arrest and were arrest­ed.

Gujarat: Mass ral­lies took place in Rajpi­pla (10,000 peo­ple), Dharam­pur (4,000 peo­ple), Sabarkan­tha Dis­trict (dhar­nas at three loca­tions). Protests will take place in Cho­ta Udaipur, Vyara and Bhilwa­da are expect­ed in the com­ing days, in which sev­er­al thou­sand peo­ple are expect­ed to par­tic­i­pate.

Chhat­tis­garh: A mass dhar­na took place in Raipur in which approx­i­mate­ly 1,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed.

Jhark­hand: Peo­ple from Kun­ti, Haz­arib­agh and Ranchi dis­trict joined a mass demon­stra­tion in Ranchi. Ral­lies took place at the sub-divi­sion­al lev­el in East Singhb­hum and at the block lev­el in Late­har, Pala­mau, West Singhb­hum Dis­tricts.

The pas­sage of the For­est Rights Act in Decem­ber 2006 was a his­toric step for­ward for the strug­gle against the auto­crat­ic, bru­tal and repres­sive rule of colo­nial laws and the For­est Depart­ment in Indi­a’s forests. But the mere pas­sage of a law is not enough to over­turn a cen­tu­ry of oppres­sion. Today, the fight con­tin­ues for a new order in the forests – one built around democ­ra­cy instead of bureau­cra­cy, around the peo­ple rather than the offi­cials, and around the forests and their cit­i­zens rather than the cor­po­rates and cap­i­tal.

30 July 2009
Dozens of Penan tribes­peo­ple armed with blow­pipes and spears have erect­ed block­ades across the roads cut by log­ging com­pa­nies deep into their for­est in Bor­neo. The block­aders are call­ing for an end to log­ging on their land.

Sur­vival Inter­na­tion­al is call­ing for recog­ni­tion of the hunter-gath­er­er Penan tribe’s land rights and a halt to all devel­op­ment on their land with­out their con­sent.

Malaysian police are at the block­ades, but no arrests have been report­ed.

One Penan man told Sur­vival, ‘This piece of for­est is the only place left for us to hunt and find food. But there’s only a lit­tle bit left. Last night I went hunt­ing and came back with noth­ing. If we can’t save this bit of for­est, we will have noth­ing to eat.’

The Penan live in Sarawak, in the Malaysian part of the island of Bor­neo. They have been strug­gling for more than twen­ty years to stop the com­pa­nies clear­ing their forests. Some have been suc­cess­ful, but many have seen their forests dev­as­tat­ed, their rivers pol­lut­ed and the ani­mals and plants they rely on for food dis­ap­pear.

Now, where the valu­able trees have all been tak­en, the com­pa­nies are start­ing to clear the land com­plete­ly for oil palm plan­ta­tions. Palm oil is used in many foods and cos­met­ics, and increas­ing­ly for bio­fu­els.

Survival’s direc­tor Stephen Cor­ry said today, ‘The log­ging and oil palm com­pa­nies are rob­bing the Penan not just of their forests but of their food and water. It is essen­tial that the Malaysian gov­ern­ment rec­og­nizes the Penan’s rights to their land and stops allow­ing the com­pa­nies to take every­thing in sight.’

The noto­ri­ous Malaysian com­pa­ny Sam­ling is log­ging in the Long Daloh area, and a sub­sidiary of the com­pa­ny KTS is log­ging in the Ba Marong area.

Sur­vival researcher Miri­am Ross vis­it­ed the Penan ear­li­er this year, and is avail­able for inter­view.

Vis­it Survival’s web­page about the Penan

For more infor­ma­tion and images please con­tact Miri­am Ross:
T (+44) (0)20 7687 8734 or (+44) (0)7504543367
E mr@survival-international.org