Fighting for the Rainforests
Fighting for the Rainforests
To further the understanding of the diversity and complexity of environmentalism, chapter 8 opens with the story of Bruno Manser, who in the 1980s left Switzerland to live with the Penan people in Sarawak, Malaysia. Before long he had joined with the Penan to oppose the logging of Borneo’s rainforests; in the 1990s he would emerge from Sarawak and bring the plight of the Penan to the world’s attention. Manser fought against the moderating tendencies within rainforest activism. Yet, as is true across the mainstream of environmentalism, these moderating tendencies within rainforest activism have only strengthened since 2000, with increasing support from nongovernmental certification organizations to export rainforest products. Examples include the Forest Stewardship Council (founded 1993) and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (founded 2004). As Manser worried, however, over the past two decades these market mechanisms have done little to help indigenous forest peoples or end tropical deforestation.
Keywords: Bruno Manser, deforestation, forest peoples, Malaysia, rainforests, Sarawak
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