Long Lawen is a Kenyah village located in Sarawak, surrounded by gorgeous secondary forest. Originally from Long Gang, the Long Lawen community was strongly opposed the building of the Bakun dam mega-hydro project in the late 90s. They refused to be part of the government’s resettlement scheme, instead moving to higher ground in 1998 and setting up a new longhouse.

In 2001, Seacology provided funding to the Borneo Project, in cooperation with Green Empowerment, so that Long Lawen could build and maintain their own micro-hydro system. The Borneo Project and Seacology will be visiting Long Lawen ahead of the Clean Energy Collaboration Kuching, in order to check in with community members and show interested visitors the community-led energy independence that Long Lawen has achieved.

This technology generates electricity by harnessing the power of small streams that have significant vertical drop. The micro-hydro project at Long Lawen now provides 12 kilowatts of electricity 24 hours a day, lighting a school and a local clinic, as well as delivering the every day energy needs of the community.

Gara Jalong, headman of Long Lawen, will share with us Long Lawen’s micro-hydro success story. Visitors will also have the opportunity to live as the locals do, experiencing life in an indigenous longhouse.

Schedule

  • Meet in Miri
  • Drive from Miri to Long Lawen on the morning of March 11th (approx. 5 hours)
  • Experience life at the longhouse, visit successful micro-hydro site and an optional hike to a nearby waterfall – March 12th
  • Drive to resettlement township of Sungai Asap to meet with displaced communities – March 13th
  • Drive back to Bintulu and fly to Kuching — March 14th

Things to note

Staying in a longhouse is not the same as sleeping in a hotel and is more similar to camping conditions. Long Lawen is only accessible by logging roads so those who have back problems or difficulty traveling are not encouraged to join us on this trip.

This visit is not free and will incur a small fee for food, accommodation and travel costs, dependent on numbers.

How to join us:

Those interested in joining us for this journey can send us an email at cleanenergycollab@gmail.com with the subject line “Long Lawen” and we will send through further details.