Swiss Environmentalist Missing for More Than a Year
KARUNA SHINSHO, CNN ANCHOR: It's now more than a year since a Swiss environmentalist disappeared while on a trip to the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Bruno Manser had been campaigning on behalf of the Penan, a forest-dwelling people whose environment is threatened by logging. Manser was last seen heading into dense jungle to meet with Penan leaders. He never made it. Journalist Ian Williams tried to find out why.</s>IAN WILLIAMS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The sound of the rain forest, logging companies are slicing their way deeper and deeper into the Sarawak's last untouched areas. They are after the biggest and the tallest trees they can find, though they destroyed dozens of others in the process. They advance down muddy paths, bulldozed into the dense jungle, only pausing when there's nothing more worth cutting down.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): The areas are finished so we are moving on. We are going to a new area. We are going over there next, where the rain is falling, where the white clouds are.</s>WILLIAMS: Over there, under the clouds, is home for the Penan, one of world's last remaining groups of forest nomads.</s>MELAI NA'A, VILLAGE HEADMAN (through translator): The logging company accused me of arguing with them. They say I am always complaining about land. One manager threatened to call in the army and the police. He said they'll shoot all of you. Everyone in the Pantif (ph) will die.</s>WILLIAMS: Bruno Manser knew this jungle. The Swiss environmentalist was trusted and respected the by the Penan. We met Kuyu and his family as they prepared a male of wild boar and giant lizard. they explained how Bruno had given them hope, urging them to stand up for their rights.</s>KUYU AKA (through translator): He also advised us to take a harder line with the loggers and set up blockades to force those people to come and talk with us. That's what we hoped.</s>WILLIAMS: Few of their hopes have been real ideas. Armed with blowpipes and darts to hunt for food, many continue to live a seminomadic existence. But with the loggers encroaching further and further on to their customary land and no legal protection, the number of truly nomadic Penan has declined to a thousand at most, a tenth of the total.</s>WILLIAMS: The old skills do still pay off, but it is a struggle to live off of the diminishing forest that once provided all of their needs. Many are desperate.</s>NA'A (through translator): Look at these people. They all have been here. Now there is no more medicine left in the jungle. It is finished. Everything is finished -- medicines, palm shoots, wild boars, all finished, food from the jungle, finished.</s>WILLIAMS: Though the jungle is dense, the Penan did find Bruno Manser's last campfire, beside a river, then his track disappeared in a area close to where logging companies were moving in. There isn't any evidence of foul play, but over the years, Bruno Manser was an acute irritant to the authorities, who accused him of stirring up trouble. One of his last publicity stunts two years ago was paragliding over the house of Sarawak's chief minister, who was hosting a garden party. He was deported. And the logging went on. Most of it by companies well connected to the Sarawak government, who have little time for the Penan or for Bruno Manser. Over lunch, Mr. Wong he told us that Bruno Manser had given the Penan false hope, but logging had saved them, by bringing roads to the interior, but then the environment minister has reason to applaud the loggers. He owns the substantial stake of one of Sarawak's biggest logging companies, which has been awarded a license to log large areas of the Penan's customary land. (on camera): And you wouldn't accept the conflict of interests?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, there's no conflict of interest. I am not a minister in charge of forestry. I am not a minister of forestry. I am a minister of environment, protecting the environment as a whole.</s>WILLIAMS: But it does effect the environment?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, it doesn't effect. For me, it is not effecting the environment, providing you log it properly.</s>WILLIAMS (voice-over): The logging it is relentless. Soon, there will be insufficient forest to sustain any type of nomadic lifestyle. The Penan are losing their battle. Bruno knew that when he sneaked back last year. There are those who still hope he will reappear, and at the head of the last desperate wave of protests. As time goes by, that's looking increasingly unlikely. Ian Williams, ITN, Sarawak.