Tropical Rainforest Destruction In Sarawak

EDM number 368 in 1991-92, proposed by Jim Lester on 10/12/1991.

That this House, concerned that the Sarawakian rainforest in Malaysia is being logged at a rate which will exhaust its timber resources before the end of this decade, that the exceptionally rich biological diversity of this rainforest considered to be the oldest in the world is directly threatened by the logging with some species already extinct, that the issue of land rights for the indigenous people has been ignored and hundreds of indigenous people arrested for protesting at encroachments on their traditional land, and aware that the culture and right to self-determination of these people are being eliminated along with the forest on which they depend, now calls upon her Majesty's Government to make representations to the Malaysian Government to voice the above concerns, to encourage the Malaysian Government to at least take positive steps to implement the recommendations of the 1990 Sarawak Mission of the International Tropical Timber Organisation which calls for a reduction in logging rates to 9.2 million cubic metres per year and a moratorium in areas where there is a land dispute, to pay heed to the resolutions of the European Parliament of 19th September 1991 and 8th July 1989 which call for an immediate moratorium on imports of tropical hardwood from Sarawak until the issue of land rights is sorted out and truly sustainable forestry management put into practice and, finally, to review all relevant international trade policies in which Japan's role must be included to address the necessity for changing such practices to ensure that there is no further and irrevocable destruction of tropical rainforests.

This motion has been signed by a total of 54 MPs.