1Borneo’s rainforests are among the oldest on Earth, and they hold a dense variety of unique fauna and flora species. Beyond the non-human significance of these forests, indigenous communities have relied on them for generations, as they depend on food, wood, water, natural medicine and other forestry products for their livelihoods. Deforestation, which dramatically increased after the Second World War to reach an all-time high in the 1980s, has had a disastrous effect on the lives of the indigenous communities of Sarawak, one of the Malaysian regions of the island. River pollution, disappearance of game and uprooting of sago palms, fruit trees and rattan, which form the basis of various peoples’ subsistence, are some of the dramatic consequences of timber logging. Besides impacting livelihoods at sustenance and economic levels, these activities have also destroyed sites of important historical, biographical, social and cultural significance to indigenous communities.

2At the height of the logging boom of the 1980s and 1990s, these issues gained considerable traction on a global level, in the context of the advent of the ‘sustainable development’ agenda. This discourse suggests that ecological issues may be provided a ‘technical fix’ ensured by scientific expertise and technological means, while permitting the continuation of ‘business as usual’ by leaving the current capitalistic system untouched. Tropical forest destruction in Malaysia was thus rendered not only compatible with conservation aims, but also necessary to the pursuit of ‘development’ in the name of ‘catching up’ with Northern countries. Coined as ‘environmental managerialism’ (Escobar, 1996), this approach is notably espoused by the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO). Established in a context of heightened global concern for tropical forest protection, this organisation aims to regulate tropical timber trade by enabling cooperation between producer and consumer states, on the unspoken rationale that these forests only continue to exist if used for an economic purpose (Nagtzaam, 2009). With a secondary purpose of biodiversity conservation, this entity played a crucial role in advancing the paradigm of ‘sustainable forest management’ and reconciling development with conservation (Nagtzaam, 2009, 270).

3In recent times, social justice and indigenous peoples’ livelihoods have taken centre stage in conservation and ecological debates, which the ITTO has not failed to incorporate into its projects. Globally, indigenous peoples’ knowledge is increasingly being recognised, as these groups’ ancestral relation with and attitude towards the land are put forward for their capacity to ‘safeguard’ biodiversity hotspots across the globe. The Upper Baram Forest Area (UBFA) is a proposed conservation project at the early implementation stage, formulated with particular emphasis on indigenous peoples’ ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’. Through ethnographic research conducted among residents to be affected by this project and interviews with NGO workers involved in its design and implementation, I ask the following questions:

How have different modes of knowledge production and governmentality interacted with indigenous peoples of the Baram area historically and in the context of the UBFA?

• Which discourses and modes of knowledge have been at play in the creation of the project?
• How have different understandings of key concepts of the project been negotiated between different actors in that process?
• How can anthropology inform conservation and development projects such as this one?

4In answering these questions, I consider ethnographic data gathered during prior fieldwork led with a participant observation approach among indigenous residents of the area, as well as NGO workers involved in its design. This data is reinterpreted in light of historical and theoretical inputs and complemented with a discourse analysis of the ITTO project proposal/document1 and additional interviews with NGO workers. I argue that this project is inscribed in a historical trend of diverting attention from the fundamental to the technical, where indigenous peoples are not only dispossessed of their land and cultures, they are also subjected to cognitive extractivism through the conversion of their ideas into economic or symbolic capital, without significantly being acknowledged and incorporated into decision-making processes. Their voices are excluded from transnational discussions and negotiations between the government and development actors, all the while they are essentialised into a monolithic Other forming the core of the project. Through this project, the Sarawak government and the ITTO smoothen their image while defusing demands for substantive change and threats of collective mobilisation.

5The structure is as follows:

6First, I begin by clarifying my positionality with regards to the UBFA project, to which I was introduced through a collaborative research project as an element of my master’s programme. I explain the impetus for this research, which arose in the course of conducting fieldwork for the purpose of the collaborative project. I then detail the methodology which will be used in reinterpreting the data gathered and reconsidering it in light of certain theoretical, historical, and discursive inputs. Theoretical insights are considered, which are anchored in poststructuralism, post-development, and postcolonial strains of thought.

7An historical account is then provided of indigenous peoples of Sarawak – particularly communities living in the Ulu (Upper) Baram area concerned with the UBFA project – and their interactions with alien people and institutions, whether colonial, academic, statist, or corporate. From the colonial periods under the White Rajah and British Crown, to the capitalist setting of post-independence Malay governance, I examine the ways relations to the land have been articulated and how these understandings have shifted. As it evokes the history of physical extraction and exploitation of the nonhuman world, this section pays attention to the ways in which these have been accompanied by epistemological support and justification. In particular, it examines the role of anthropologists, knowledge acquisition and social classification in imposing control and disconnecting ‘nature’ and ‘culture’.

8Proceeding to the 1980s-onwards periods, the subsequent section examines how this historical epistemic disconnection of indigenous peoples from the nonhuman world evolves under yet another form of governmentality. The global shift to the prism of sustainable development marks the subjection of Sarawak’s indigenous peoples to a more pernicious form of physical and knowledge dispossession, under the auspices of sustainability and community-based conservation. In this context which allowed for the design and launch of the UBFA, I argue that the technocratisation and institutionalisation of conservation and development further diverts attention away from indigenous knowledge and relation to the land; instead prioritising so-called expert knowledge.

9Reinterpretation and analysis of data is then provided, which considers the contrasting indigenous understandings of and expectations for the project with the proposal emitted by the ITTO, pointing to the negotiation and reframing of different concepts central to the park. Notably, the concepts examined and questioned include that of the land, the forest, conservation, indigenous participation and empowerment.

10Finally, research findings are nuanced in a limitations section, followed by the conclusion which summarises the main findings and considers openings for the contribution of anthropology to development and conservation projects.