The New Yorker, May 27, 1991 P. 42
Mentioned several times in REPORTER AT LARGE about the Borneo rain forest. The northern third of the island of Borneo is divided into the Malaysian states of Sarawak & Sabah & the oil sultanate of Brunei. Marudi is the last major trading post before the rain forest begins. While there writer attended a strange trial. Five member of the Penan tribe, wearing nothing but loincloths, stood in the dock, listening to proceedings that could put them in jail. The proceedings were in English because that is the language of the Sarawak courts. The five Penan were from a tiny settlement called Long Leng. The charge was that three years earlier they had burned down 4 small wooden bridges across creeks on a logging road. Writer spoke with their lawyer, Wendel Crocker & learned the facts of the case. The real issue was the logging of Sarawak. Logging has hit Sarawak so rapidly & with such drastic consequences that many environmentalists attempting to save the world's rain forests consider it thei most urgent problem. The Penan are the least aggressive & most isolated of the Borneo peoples-the last of the hunter-gatherers. They are one of the few tribes on earth that still depend for survival on what is to be found in the forest rather than on crops grown or animals raised. They are gentle, quiet-spoken, they never punish their children. They are extraordinarily generous. Now their future is threatened by an invasion from another civilization acting in the name of profit. Writer went to Long Leng to learn more about their life. Tells, at some length, what he found out on this visit about their problems & efforts to cope. Since Mar. 1987 they have participated in protests against logging.