Fw: RELEASE: Malaysia's Hollow Democracy: Government Censors Internet Criticism of Global Rainforest for Oil Palm Land Grab

[Guest guest]

" Ecological Internet "

 

PRESS/SOCIAL MEDIA RELEASE

Malaysia's Hollow Democracy: Government Censors Internet Criticism of

Global Rainforest for Oil Palm Land Grab

 

- Government documents regarding planned Amazon oil palm project by

Malaysian government agency removed from Internet, and all email messages

into country regarding the project are being deleted

 

May 16, 2009

By Earth's Newsdesk, a project of Ecological Internet (EI)

http://www.ecoearth.info/newsdesk/

CONTACT: Dr. Glen Barry, glenbarry

 

Rather than respond substantively to criticism over the Malaysian government

and industry's expansion of deadly oil palm plantations into Brazil and

Liberia's rainforests [1], the Malaysian government is resorting to despotic

censorship to stifle dissent. References to plans by Malaysia's federal land

agency to establish up to 100,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in the

heart of Brazil's Amazon rainforest are being systematically removed from

the government's Internet servers. And all emails referring to Malaysia's

global rainforest for oil palm land grab flowing through Streamyx, the

monopoly Internet service provider in Malaysia, are not being delivered.

 

" It is clear that Malaysian citizens do not enjoy freedom of information,

which is tragic, because their government is leading the destruction of

Earth's rainforests with their tax money, " asserts Dr. Barry, Ecological

Internet's President. " For decades Malaysian timber companies have behaved

like timber Mafia across the Asia-Pacific, bribing and waging violence to

rip out millions of year old rainforest ecosystems for timber. This once off

raping of the land is now being followed by planting of oil palm, in what

can only be described as south-south neo-colonialism. We demand that the

Malaysian government respond to our criticism, cancel the projects, and

commit to freedom of expression regarding their rainforest policies. "

 

Sime Darby, a Malaysian palm oil producer planning to invest $800 million

for 200,000 hectares (500,000 acres) of palm oil and rubber plantations in

Liberia, described Malaysia expansionist foreign policy perfectly. " It is

increasingly difficult to acquire arable plantation land in Asia and thus it

is imperative that new frontiers be sought to meet increasing demand, " said

Ahmad Zubir Murshid, chief executive of Sime Darby. " Sime Darby will also

have the first mover advantage over future entrants into Liberia in terms of

securing choice land. "

 

" This flood of land grabs by emerging nations, mostly of land under local

customary land tenure, is eerily reminiscent of past and ongoing European

and U.S. colonial practices, " states Dr. Glen Barry, who is a practicing

Political Ecologist and hold a Ph.D. in Land Resources. " We are witnessing

the intensification of social turmoil caused by climate change, land and

water scarcity, and over-population and inequitable consumption. Until these

root causes of global ecosystem collapse are addressed, there is no chance

of achieving equitable and just global ecological sustainability. "

 

### MORE ###

 

Globally, oil palm development continues to clear some thirty square miles

of carbon and biodiversity rich habitat a day to provide cheap cooking oil

and transport biodiesel. Oil palm agrofuel is heralded as a climate change

mitigation measure, yet the initial rainforest clearance leads to much more

carbon release than its production and use avoids. Establishment of toxic,

monoculture oil palm plantations in the Brazilian Amazon and Liberia's West

African rainforests would be a global ecological tragedy for biodiversity

and climate, and a crime against local peoples and humanity.

 

Large scale biofuel and intensification of industrial agriculture production

in general runs counter to urgently addressing climate change and threatens

to cause more deforestation, hunger, human rights abuses, and degradation of

soil and water. Globally there are not enough old forests to maintain

climatic and hydrological cycles, meet local forest dwellers' needs, and to

maintain ecosystems and the biosphere in total. Global ecological

sustainability and local well-being depend critically upon ending all

industrial development in the world's remaining old forests -- including

plantations, logging, mining and dams. Ecological Internet's global Earth

Action Network will continue to campaign aggressively against all those

carrying out and apologizing for such senseless and deadly rainforest

destruction.

 

### ENDS ###

 

[1] Action Alert: Malaysian Oil Palm Threatens Brazilian Amazon

http://www.climateark.org/shared/alerts/send.aspx?id=amazon_oil_palm

Thus far 2,310 people from 68 countries have sent 75,570 protest emails

 

Discuss this release at:

http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2009/05/release_malaysias_hollow_demo

c.asp