"Malaysia: Wood Products Tainted by Abuse, Deforestation", 4 May 2025

Malaysia’s Sarawak state has failed to protect an Indigenous community from a timber company that logged without the community’s consent and seeks to remove them from their land, Human Rights Watch said in a report ... Similar rights abuses throughout Sarawak underscore the need for the government to regulate businesses and for international buyers of Malaysian wood products – including the European Union, the United States, and Japan – to enforce sustainability laws for timber imports.

The 54-page report, “Facing the Bulldozers: Iban Indigenous Resistance to the Timber Industry in Sarawak, Malaysia,” details how the Malaysian company Zedtee, part of the Shin Yang Group timber conglomerate, logged in the ancestral territory of the Iban community Rumah Jeffery without their consent. Human Rights Watch found that Zedtee’s conduct did not meet Sarawak’s laws and policies, or the terms of the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme. Rather than hold Zedtee accountable, the Sarawak state government threatened to arrest protesters and demolish Rumah Jeffery’s village…

The Sarawak government granted Zedtee two leases that completely cover Rumah Jeffery’s territory. One lease is a logging concession, while the other is for a tree plantation. The logging concession is certified under the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme. The certification requires companies to respect Indigenous land rights. Community members said they never consented to relinquishing their land or forest resources to Zedtee. This discrepancy was not noted in the most recent audit of the logging concession, Human Rights Watch said.

While the Sarawak government requires tree plantations to be accredited under a sustainability certification program, Zedtee’s tree plantation was not certified…

Zedtee filed a complaint with the Forest Department against Rumah Jeffery. In October 2022, the Forest Department issued an eviction order against the community and five other Indigenous communities overlapping with Zedtee’s lease. The community appealed to multiple government offices, without an official response thus far. The unenforced eviction order remains a constant source of anxiety for Rumah Jeffery…

Sarawak’s laws and policies, while generally inadequate in regard to Indigenous rights, were not upheld in Rumah Jeffery’s case. Sarawak’s Land Code requires the state to “terminate” native customary land, or the community to “surrender” it and compensation paid before the land could be used…

Tree plantations – the leading driver of deforestation in Sarawak – feed into the state’s timber exports, worth MYR 2.3 billion (US$560 million) in 2023. Zedtee’s parent company, the Shin Yang Group, lists Japan, the EU, and the US on its website as markets for its wood products. Zedtee and the Shin Yang Group have not responded to multiple requests for comment…