The recently released book “Money Logging” documents the local politics, international complicity and dedicated resistance in the struggle against the turning of Sarawak's rainforests into a monoculture of oil palms and hydropower reservoirs. Author Lukas Straumann singles out Abdul Taib Mahmud, former governor of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, as the kingpin of this Asian timber mafia, while he shows that Taib’s family—with the complicity of global financial institutions—have profited to the tune of US$15 billion. Moreover, a series of 12 large-scale dams, two of which have already been built, would inundate 1,600 square kilometres of rainforest and displace 235 indigenous communities. Taib's companies also supply cement and cables for hydropower stations and build resettlement camps. Indigenous communities and activist organizations are still resisting these destructive expansions.
See more in English here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-bosshard/greed-and-resistance-in-s_b_6350036.html
