The witnesses at the Rainforest Tribunal

Claude Martin
Biologist and member of the Club of Rome

Claude Martin has been the Director General of WWF International from 1993 to 2005. Before joining WWF, initially as Director of WWF-Switzerland, he worked as field biologist in Central India and as director of protected rainforest areas in West Africa. Since the 1970’s he has been engaged in tropical forest research, policy and conservation. As a member of the Club of Rome he is the author of the seminal 2015 report “On the Edge – The State and Fate of the World’s Tropical Rainforests” (Greystone Books, Vancouver B.C.). Claude Martin is Swiss and holds an MSc in biology and a PhD from the University of Zurich.

«My most important success was achieved as co-initiator of the Amazon Region Protected Areas (ARPA) plan of Brazil, which brought 600’000 km2 under protection, complementing and connecting Indigenous reserves.»

Ida Theilade
Biologist and professor at the University of Copenhagen

Ida Theilade is a biologist and professor at the University of Copenhagen with a key interest in participatory management and conservation of tropical forests. Current research centres on ethnobotany, citizen science, and the role Indigenous knowledge and institutions can play in natural resource governance and climate action. Ida travelled extensively in Borneo from 1986 an onwards and visited many of the Penan blockades. Today, Ida is Chairperson for the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) and continues to champion Indigenous peoples’ rights.

«I saw the massive forest destruction first hand. Amidst the beauty of the forest and the grim destruction, I was impressed by the knowledge, bravery, and resilience of the true Masters of the forest, — the Penan.»

Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Explorer and President of Survival International

Robin Hanbury-Tenison is an explorer with a conscience. He has spent much of his life travelling in the world’s rainforests and deserts and campaigning to protect both them and their people. He is a Gold Medallist of the Royal Geographical Society, for whom he led their largest scientific expedition to Mulu, Sarawak, in 1977/78, spending fifteen months in the heart of Borneo. He believes that the spirit of exploration is alive and well and never more needed than now, as we begin to realise how little we really understand our world and how rapidly we are destroying it. The author of over twenty-five books also became a celebrated photographer via the critically acclaimed exhibition at the National Theatre, Echoes of a Vanished World, that detailed his first encounters with pristine peoples and places.

«Protecting all remaining rainforest and restoring much of what has been destroyed will be the best way to reduce CO₂ levels in the atmosphere.»

Mutang Urud
Human Rights and Environmental Activist from Sarawak, Montreal

Mutang Urud is an Indigenous human rights and environmental activist who has been in jail for his activism. He is a Kelabit from Sarawak who took refuge in Canada. His local activism started in the early 1980s and since the 1990s he was involved in the international Indigenous rights movement at the United Nations. In Canada he has worked for a decade amongst Aboriginal youth in the environmental and outdoor education. Presently, he also dedicates his time to protecting his people’s culture and language through oral history writing, creating a dictionary, and mapping their traditional territory.

«The rainforest is not just a forest. It’s our home, our source of survival for thousands of years where the land is filled with the cultural stories and biographies of our ancestors.»

Unga Paren
Headman of the Penan community Long Bangan, Sarawak

Mutang Tuo
Headman of the Penan community Long Payau, Sarawak

Unga Paren and Mutang Tuo are the headmen of the Penan villages of Long Bangan and Long Payau in the rainforest of Sarawak. In 1990, together with Bruno Manser and Mutang Urud, they toured 25 cities in 13 countries within six weeks on the occasion of the "Penan World Tour" to draw attention to the threatening deforestation of the rainforest. They met personalities such as Al Gore, Danielle Mitterrand and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. But at home in Malaysia, their calls for a halt to deforestation fell on deaf ears. Their appearance at the Rainforest Tribunal is their first joint public appearance since the 1990 Penan World Tour.

«We ask you people all over the world for help, even though you are so far away. Knowing that you care keeps us alive.»

Komeok Joe
Human rights and environmental activist from Sarawak

Komeok Joe is the CEO and founder of Keruan, a Penan non-profit self-help organization based in Kota Kinabalu and Miri, Malaysia. After working in various jobs in the private sector, Komeok trained as a community organizer in 1991. After completing his training, he began working full-time to defend the rights of the Indigenous Penan, working closely with Bruno Manser and the Bruno Manser Fonds. The knowledge and experience he acquired allowed him to lead the struggle of his people. He represented the Indigenous Peoples Network Malaysia (JOAS) at various international conferences. Komeok Joe is one of only two recipients of the "Bruno Manser Award for Moral Courage".

«Bruno Manser's strong will to protect the forest continues to motivate us and remind us that we must act now before it is too late.»

Jerald Joseph
Human rights consultant from Kuala Lumpur

For the last 30 years, has been a human rights defender and an experienced trainer consultant on human rights issues concerning the rights of Indigenous Peoples, elimination of racial discrimination, and economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). Jerald recently completed his term of six years as a Commissioner of SUHAKAM, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia. He now Chairs the Executive Council of Forum ASIA and is also a Board Member of Pusat KOMAS and Greenpeace Southeast Asia. Previously, he was appointed as a Member of the Consultative Council on Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs Ministry Malaysia, and the Independent Committee on Migrant Workers, Ministry of Human Resources. He was also a member of the Committee for the Licensed Early Release of Prisoners, appointed by the Director General of the Prison Department Malaysia.

«Because of my involvement in the campaign against the Bakun Dam in 1996, I was blacklisted by the Taib government, barring my entry into Sarawak until today.»

Willie Kajan
Land rights activist from the Tering / Berawan people, Mulu, Sarawak

Willie has been committed to the rights of his Tering / Berawan people in Mulu, the site of the UNESCO World Heritage Gunung Mulu National Park, for three decades. In 1993, he participated in an initial blockade demanding recognition of land rights and a share in tourism revenues. In 1994, he was imprisoned for two weeks during a protest action. It turned out that the Mulu tourism resort licence had been granted to the sister of Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud ("Taib"). In 2018/2019, Willie played an important role in the successful protest against an oil palm plantation in the Mulu area, helping to save this precious forest.

«We demand that the land in Mulu be returned to us Indigenous people. We are the best caretakers of the forest, we keep the flora and fauna pristine and we can preserve the land for future generations.»

See Chee How
Land Rights Lawyer and Member of the Sarawak State Assembly, Kuching

See Chee How is a practising lawyer with more than twenty years of experience, focusing on public law and particularly Indigenous land rights litigation in Sarawak. He is an elected State Assembly person since 2011, now in the third term (2021 to 2026). For more than thirty years, he has participated in numerous local, regional and international meetings and campaigns on human rights, Indigenous communities’ rights to land, support and actions to safeguard nature and environmental conservation.

«We land rights lawyers cannot afford to lose any of our cases as that would mean the communities losing their homes, their lands which constitute their lives, livelihood, culture, tradition and those of their future generations.»

Clare Rewcastle Brown
Journalist and Editor Sarawak Report, London

Clare Rewcastle Brown is the founder of the website Sarawak Report set up to challenge the corruption driving deforestation in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. Her investigations culminated in the exposure of the famous 1MDB scandal - a US$5 billion theft by the former Malaysian Prime Minister, Najib Razak. She describes as an even greater scandal the 40-year-long kleptocracy by the Governor of the State of Sarawak, Abdul Taib Mahmud, which she has frequently documented over the past 15 years.

«As a journalist, I decided to turn my skills to exposing the criminality responsible for the problems caused by greedy exploitation of the forests and their resources.»

Bruce H. Searby
Attorney and former U.S. Federal Prosecutor, Washington DC

Bruce H. Searby is an American litigator with broad white-collar criminal experience, and has successfully prosecuted and defended some of the most high-profile foreign and domestic bribery cases pursued by the U.S. federal government. He is a thought leader and expert on how to use U.S. and international laws to advance climate action, focusing on combatting corruption and other illegal behaviors that drive tropical deforestation.

«The Penan and other Indigenous groups must have used for their benefit and vindication all the legal tools that the world has to offer, to preserve what remains of the natural environment.»

Dayang Ukau
Penan activist, Bateu Bungan/Mulu, Sarawak

Dayang Ukau represents a new generation of Penan women working to protect the forest and the rights of their Indigenous communities. Dayang Ukau hails from Bateu Bungan, the Penan village in the heart of the UNESCO-protected Gunung Mulu National Park, a global biodiversity hotspot. Dayang successfully campaigned with her family against the conversion of 4400 hectares of rainforest in the Mulu area into an oil palm plantation.

«Thanks to the joint commitment of us Penan, the Tering, our lawyers and the Bruno Manser Fonds, we managed to protect 4400 hectares of forest near our village from being converted into a palm oil plantation.»

Elizabeth Ballang
Penan activist from Miri, Sarawak

Elizabeth Ballang became known to the Swiss public as the female lead in the feature film "Bruno Manser — The Voice of the Rainforest", in which she plays the role of Ubung, the imaginary friend of Bruno Manser, as an amateur actress. Since completing filming, she has worked for the Penan self-help organization Keruan and in 2022 participated in a successful blockade to save the last virgin forest in her home village of Long Ajeng. She is particularly involved in women's empowerment and accompanies Penan children and youth to school. Elizabeth Ballang represents the Penan youth in the Association of Malaysian Indigenous Peoples.

«I call on the government to provide us Indigenous people with better access to birth certificates and identity cards so that our children can go to school and support their families.»

Roland Engan
Land rights lawyer and politician, Miri, Sarawak.

Roland Engan is a passionate defender of the rights of marginalized Indigenous communities in Sarawak. A Kenyah from Baram, he became politicized in 2009 with the successful campaign against the Baram Dam. Since 2018, he has been representing land rights cases in court himself. He is involved in Indigenous community empowerment through the NGO Persatuan Pewaris Bahagian Miri. Roland Engan is the Chairman of the Peoples Justice Party (PKR) in Sarawak and an active member of the pastoral team of Bethel Church Malaysia.

«Forest conservation, reforestation and aquaculture must be implemented under a zero-logging policy and carbon trading must involve the Indigenous communities as the custodians of forest, land and rivers in Sarawak/Malaysia.»

Celine Lim
Managing Director of SAVE Rivers, Miri, Sarawak

A Kayan from Baram, Sarawak, Celine Lim is the Managing Director of SAVE Rivers, a local civil society organisation that advocates for Indigenous people’s rights and environmental issues. SAVE Rivers is a member of the Indigenous Communities Conserved Area (ICCA) Consortium, an international organization that promotes the appropriate recognition and support of Indigenous Peoples' Conserved Areas and Territories. Indigenous people and environmental rights are important to Celine as she has witnessed first-hand how Indigenous communities are affected by the forced changes in their environment, community, and culture through external factors.

«The public needs to become more aware of its own civil rights, demand more transparency and access to public information from its government, and exercise more of its right to participate in political and legislative decision-making.»