Minister wants nomadic community to be given a choice to live a life they want, calls for devt with human touch
KUCHING: It is wrong to assume that Penans want to be ‘fossilised’ in time and remain in their nomadic lifestyle Land Development Minister Tan Sri Dr James Masing in his winding up speech at State Legislative Assembly yesterday said Penans like other communities also wanted to move forward but at their own pace.
“It will be wrong to keep them in the forest forever because like the rest of us, they also want to move forward, but moving at their own pace,” Masing told the august House.
He pointed out it was important for the government to understand the community, who will be affected by development projects and they should be not be rushed into changing their way of life.
“They (Penans) should be given a choice to live a life which they want; the old or the new… I call it development practices with human touch.”
He said the construction of Murum dam will affect 1,352 Penans and although their number may be small they have been hogging the print and electronic media.
Preserving the Penans in their nomadic way of life has become a cause célèbre for international NGOs and in their mistaken belief that Penans shun progress and preferred to stick to their hunting and gathering nomadic life these organisations and foreign press had painted a negative picture of the state government’s efforts to settle them.
“Perhaps, it is about time we (government) try to understand the Penan cultural nuances better, so that we can have better rapport with them.”
Masing described the forest as a ‘Supermarket’ for the Penan community, where they get their supply of food and basic necessities.
“It is from the forest they get their meat, from the river they get their fish and from trees and plants they get their vegetables and jungle produce, for their daily needs as well as for their economic necessity.
“In short, the jungle is their supermarket,” Masing said.
According to Masing, the Penans took great care of their food sources, adding that the community needed the forest to remain intact to ensure their survival.
Masing who has a doctorate in anthropology added that it would take at least one generation for the Penans to move from hunters/ gatherers lifestyle to sedentary farming.
“The Penans do not possess land holding as prescribed in our laws as they do not cultivate as we do, and if we apply land holding in accordance to our laws, then Penans will have no or very little land to their names.
“We cannot, therefore, strictly use our laws as the benchmark to determine land holding among the semi-nomadic Penan, including those residing in the Murum area,” Masing said.
He suggested that other benchmark or criteria be used for the Penan to compensate for their loss of land and forest which have kept them alive for generations.
Masing also told the august House that he was glad to note the government’s commitment to help the Penan affected by dam by building schools and modern amenities to help them adapt to modern living.
He said about 30, 000ha of forested land reserve within the Murum reservoir had been set aside for the older Penans to hunt and forage.