A coalition of environmental, human rights, and indigenous groups has called on the EU to designate Malaysia’s Sarawak state as “high risk” under its new anti-deforestation law. This comes as the EU prepares to implement the Deforestation-Free Products Regulation (EUDR) in January 2025, which aims to curb imports linked to deforestation and human rights abuses.

The EUDR will restrict imports of commodities linked to deforestation and will require the EU to classify regions by risk levels — low, standard, or high — by the end of 2024. A high-risk classification for Sarawak would significantly increase scrutiny on imports of timber and palm oil from the region, increasing customs checks and requiring EU companies to conduct more rigorous due diligence.

The Sarawak state government has set an ambitious goal of establishing one million hectares of industrial timber plantations by 2025. To meet this target, over 400,000 hectares of naturally regenerating forest will need to be cleared, a move that threatens biodiversity and raises concerns about environmental degradation. Additionally, the state’s land laws are seen as undermining Indigenous peoples’ rights, and aggressive deforestation for industrial timber plantations makes it a significant area of concern. According to Luciana Téllez Chávez, senior environment, and human rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, “Sarawak’s current land code imposes insurmountable obstacles for Indigenous communities to gain and maintain title to their ancestral lands while effectively allowing companies to ravage the rainforest.” She proposes that “the EU anti-deforestation law should factor in Sarawak’s dismal track record in its benchmarking process. ‘High risk’ is the only reasonable classification.”

Moreover, the lack of meaningful protection for indigenous land rights in Sarawak is not the only concern raised. Transparency is another issue complicating Sarawak’s deforestation crisis. The state government has not released comprehensive data on Indigenous land claims or disclosed where it has issued leases to logging and palm oil companies. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for civil society groups to hold companies accountable for deforestation and rights violations.

Key recommendations include incorporating the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into federal legislation and enacting laws to prevent strategic lawsuits against public participation, which are often used to silence critics of deforestation practices. The government has yet to respond to these proposals.

It is also important to note that Malaysian exports of timber and oil products to the EU are substantial. The EU is the third largest destination of Malaysian palm oil exports, according to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board. This underscores the importance of these industries to the Malaysian economy.