Left to right: James Nyurang from Tanjung Tepalit Baram, Ungan Lisut from Sungai Asap
& Edward Ugah from Sungai Asap.
SAVE Rivers in Sarawak Energy’s Sustainability & Renewable Energy Forum, SAREF, starting today in Kuching. With its attendance, SAVE Rivers is making sure that the negative impacts of dams on Sarawak’s community and are not in this international event. SAVE Rivers community representatives from the Baram and Bakun to raise their voice about their experiences with dam implementation and planning in their areas.
With SAREF, Sarawak Energy and the Ministry of Utilities are calling stakeholders to discuss “the role of renewable energy in delivering the United Nations Sustainable Development goals by 2030”. The programme, however, has a strong bias towards large hydropower. SAVE Rivers wants to remind the organisers as well as the participants to bear in mind that the people profiting from large hydropower are hardly the rural communities in need of electricity, on the contrary, they are the ones losing out. Poor communities being the target of the SDGs, Southeast Asian governments must focus their efforts on rural electrification with people-centred technologies such as solar and micro-hydros instead of mega-dams.
Edward Ugah from Sungai Asap Bakun resettlement area said, “building more Dam means more Dayak’s Customary Rights Land will be inundated and therefore having a great impact on their livelihood and heritage. does not necessarily bring economic or social benefit to those who sacrifice so much by being displaced by it.”
Ms. Ungan Lisut another villager from the Bakun resettlement area said, “we have so many problems experienced by those who were resettled in making way for the Bakun dam. Some of these villagers have die without receiving compensation for their inundated farms and lands.”
James Nyurang a village headman from Baram said, “We don’t want mega dams in Baram. But we support generation like micro-hydro and solar power. We love our land, forest and rivers which are. I am a retired civil I have chosen to live in my ancestral village instead of living in the. Like me, there is an increasing number of people who are also moving back to their villages we love this our inheritance.
SAVE Rivers requests the Sarawak government and Sarawak Energy to follow the late Chief Minister Adenan Satem’s decision to cancel the Baram Dam. Peter Kallang, chairman of SAVE Rivers, stressed: “The current government must respect the legacy of our late Adenan Satem and stick to his shift in policy away from harmful mega-dams to real sustainable energy solutions such as solar and micro-hydro.”
SAVE Rivers 