Indigenous People’s Participation in Land Development Project in Selected Areas of Sarawak

Sarawak is the largest state in Malaysia and much of its lands are still very much undeveloped. Land development is an important approach to develop the rural areas of Sarawak. This study looks at how the rural communities are responding to the land development projects implemented which are commercially oriented. The study was carried out in the Betong and Sri Aman Division of Sarawak with the primary aim of exploring pertinent issues and problems faced by the people and the agencies during the course of the implementation of the projects. More specifically the study’s objective was to identify the livelihood strategies of the indigenous people (i.e. the Ibans) who are affected by the large scale land development projects. In addition, the study also attempt to study issues faced by the implementing agencies (i.e. SALCRA) during the pre and post- implementation period. The study used both qualitative as well as quantitative methods of data collection. The selected respondents were the local scheme’s participants, i.e. local landowners in Saratok-Saribas and Sri-Aman-Lubok Antu areas and personnel in the respective oil palm schemes. The study revealed that some of the indigenous people were quite skeptical of the large scale land development project as they are not familiar with the concept. Nevertheless, after much efforts made by the personnel from the implementing agency in collaboration with community leaders, majority of the indigenous landowners agreed to participate in the projects by allowing their Native lands to be opened up for the oil palm plantations. As time passed by, many active participants began to abandon their jobs with the oil palm schemes and pursued other economic activities to sustain their livelihood. To this day, many of the people who used to be engaged as workers in the plantation ended up being absentee-landowners