Dayak Farmer Encourages Girl Scouts of America Girl Guides of Canada to Support Indigenous Peoples
Ugak Sanggau, a Dayak from the Malaysian state of Sarawak has taken on a new mission to fight for the rights of indigenous peoples.
We featured Ugak in a blog post a few years ago when he was on a mission to introduce regenerative agriculture to the indigenous farmers in Sarawak.
We received a new message from Ugak recently asking for our help to share the news on his new mission. According to Ugak, he had seen a video from a Canadian news media, CTV News, which did a report on a young Canadian girl asking Girl Guides of Canada to stop using palm oil in their cookies.
His message was one of frustration as he told us:
“It is wrong for this young Canadian girl to tell Girl Guides of Canada to stop using palm oil because it will destroy 98% of forests according to what she told CTV News. And also destroy peatlands - these are misinformations on palm oil. I think the girl was not aware that she is repeating the misinformation on the palm oil industry that has been spreading for a long time.
We Dayaks grow palm oil on the farm lands that our ancestors have passed on to us. Some of the lands still have forest areas which we keep for traditional forest foods but the majority of the land was used for traditional crops like paddy.”
Ugak has sent letters to both the Girl Guides of Canada and Girl Scouts of America thanking them for their use of palm oil. He was emphatic in connecting palm oil directly to the empowerment of the daughters of palm oil farmers in Sarawak.
We found that to be an incredibly powerful message. His letter to Girl Scouts of America and Girl Guides of Canada is shared in full below.
Ugak Sanggau’s Letter to Girl Scouts of America Girl Guides of Canada
A happy update to Ugak’s mission to grow the regenerative agriculture movement in Sarawak is that the state farmer’s association is now working closely with him to introduce regenerative agriculture to more farmers in Sarawak.
We wish him success in his endeavours to make Malaysian palm oil more eco-friendly and stand ready to support smallholders in Malaysia to achieve certification under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil Certification scheme.
His new mission to fight for the truth about Malaysian palm oil and the role of indigenous peoples in the industry will hopefully be acknowledged by global policy makers who seek the participation of indigenous peoples in fighting climate change.
