Malaysia

Like its neighbor Indonesia, Malaysia has since its independence had one of the strongest economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of over 6 percent a year for almost 50 years. The economy was traditionally driven primarily by the exploitation of its natural resources, but has been expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, and commerce since the 1960s. Also like Indonesia, this economic growth has resulted in social and cultural pressures for groups outside of the Malay majority, particularly for those in Sarawak and Sabah on the northern edge of Borneo.

After the riots between Chinese and Malays in 1969, the new prime minister Tun Abdul Razak’s controversial New Economic Policy sought to secure the position of ethnic Malays in government and economy by assuring access to land, physical capital, technical training, and public facilities and services. While this was intended to secure a more equitable standing for Malays, one of its primary effects by the 1980s was to encourage emigration of the ethnic majority (and, with the attempts to push them out of their dominant positions in commerce, plantation agriculture, and civil service, Chinese Malaysians) into minority areas and to eliminate the subsistence agricultural and hunter/gatherer practices of non-Malay minorities such as the Iban and Orang Ulu groups of Sarawak and Sabah.

The urbanisation and growth policies of prime minister Mahathir in the 1980s and 90s intensified these effects. Logging, the establishment of oil palm plantations, and to a lesser extent mining and petroleum extraction began in this period to destroy the forests of Borneo to such an extent that the subsistence lifestyles of indigenous populations became unsustainable. The Iban and Orang Ulu were most affected, and by the early 1980s widespread complaints began to emerge of illness caused by polluted water, game depletion resulting in widespread hunger, and loss of traditional medicines and forest products. As a result, the income gained through tourism and the production of objects for tourists has increased in importance for indigenous groups ever since. It now amounts to almost 20% of the local GDP.