Indigenous Peoples

As a company with a global network of timber producers Lionex (M) Sdn. Bhd. has a certain responsibility to the people living in and from the forest. Often these people belong to the indigenous groups of the country. In Peninsular Malaysia this group is called the Orang Asli. The Orang Asli is however not one group, but are many different groups of people which are placed under one name.
Indigenous peoples are often presented as defenseless victims of deforestation. However as they have lived in and worked with the forest for many generations they hold a treasure on information about it. By starting a dialogue with indigenous peoples Lionex (M) Sdn. Bhd. hopes to learn from them and in corporation with these people make a better timber trade possible. To start this dialogue with the Orang Asli the Centre of Orang Asli Concerns is contacted to help us.
By actively involving the Centre of Orang Asli Concerns in the development of our CSR policy we hope by combining their knowledge with ours to create a CSR policy that cares.

Furthermore Lionex (M) Sdn. Bhd. makes it a strategy not to buy timber from areas where known conflicts over indigenous land rights exist and using sustainability certificates as a guarantee that timber is not harvested in conflict areas.

In our Accepted Timber Supply Program we state that all our suppliers need to comply with the universal act of the human rights which also concerns indigenous rights.

United Nations definition (1986) of Indigenous: ‘Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which have a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories; consider themselves distinct from other sectors of society now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.’ (Dove 2006, 192)