Villagers holding up placards pleading for the case to be given serious attention by the authorities.
LAHAD DATU: The villagers of Kampung Sri Aman Bumiputera near here have appealed to the government to immediately resolve the outstanding issue regarding the status of the land on which they have settled and cultivated for the last 30 years.
They made the appeal as they are worried that the Forestry Department will evict them and destroy their life-long work on the land.
According to the villagers, their village at Km 21 Jalan Silam has been in existence for more than 30 years when they were allowed to stay there by the ruling state government at the time (Berjaya government) after the area was excised from the forest reserves on the request of local leaders.
Having planted oil palm trees on the land, the villagers are now concerned that the Forestry Department is now taking action to evict them from the land and destroy the oil palm trees that are their main source of income.
The chairman of Kampung Sri Aman Bumiputera Task Force, Jumor Tadus, said since obtaining approval from the Berjaya government to settle on the land that had been excised from the forest reserves in 1979 covering an area of about 2,500 acres, the villagers had no qualms about starting their farming activity then.
He said the government at that time had wanted to open up the land for farming with an allotment of not more than three acres for each person.
“Now, there are more than 300 houses built on the land with a population of more than 1,200 people. We have settled and worked on this land with the permission of the Berjaya government to support our livelihood.
“How are we to survive and support our family if this land that we have worked on for about 30 years is taken away from us along with the recent action by the Forestry Department to destroy all the crops that we have planted on the land?”he asked.
According to Jumor, the villagers are now in a quandary and having sleepless nights worried about their fate, how they are going to continue with their life, and most importantly how to support their family.
He said ever since they started occupying the area, there had been endless discussions with various parties but until now there had been no concrete solution to this issue.
In 1982, an application for 1,000 acres of land (under PT 8211011) was registered in the district with the Assistant Collector of Land Revenue (ACLR) office for housing and farming. However, in 1984, they were informed that the land applied for could not be processed as it was within the Ulu Segama Forest Reserve.
In 1988, the Forestry Department in enforcing the Forestry Enactment demolished and burned the houses found on the land and detained several villagers besides confiscating all their equipment.
Following the incident, the village chiefs, Imam Mariasin Sarigak and Abdul Gani Airin, met a representative from Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), Mohammaddin Ketapi, to seek a solution and were given a supporting letter.
Mohammaddin had issued a letter referenced TS/KSABP2/003 to the District Forestry office dated October 24, 1988 advising that an area of some 500 acres of untapped reserves, under the management of the village chiefs, Imam Mariasin Sarigak and Abdul Gani Airin, should not be disturbed as the government had earmarked it for smallholders.
Thereafter, there was no disruption until the PBS government was replaced by the Barisan Nasional government in ruling the state.