UPDATE October 2025: palm oil giant Sin Heng Chan has been issued a stop work order and a moratorium on new forest clearing has just been put in place! This is a huge win for Indigenous Forest Defenders who've been fighting hard to save the Ulu Belaga forest.

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Indigenous Forest Defenders put their bodies on the line to blockade encroaching palm oil plantations in the beautiful Ulu Belaga forest in Malaysian Borneo. Then, they were hauled into the police station and forced to sign documents agreeing to their own arrest.

It’s an outrageous act designed to intimidate and silence locals just trying to protect their land from being destroyed by giant palm oil company Sin Heng Chan.

Indigenous Kenyah and Penan communities depend on the Ulu Belaga forest for their livelihoods. It’s a source of traditional medicines, rattan, wood and palm hearts. The pristine river that runs through it provides fish to eat.

Let’s demand that Sin Heng Chan stops the deforestation for palm oil by making this a massive global issue that’s too big for them to ignore.

Sign the petition: Sin Heng Chan stop the deforestation of the Ulu Belaga forest.

Sin Heng Chan’s Urun palm oil plantation is sustainably certified which is meant to ensure that there has been no new deforestation since December 2019. But satellite data and footage from drones (that Ekō members chipped in for) shows that almost 700 football fields worth of forest were destroyed between September 2023 and December 2024 and it isn't slowing down.

One local described the sound of trees being cut down as the “sound of death”.

Villagers have been fighting back against the deforestation of their native forest – signing an open letter to the government and corporation calling on them to remove their land from the plantation license. And the mounting pressure resulted in a Malaysian Senator calling for a stop to the plantation’s deforestation activities. Now, let’s really turn up the heat and back in what local communities and the Senator are calling for.

Add your name to the petition and help protect the Ulu Belaga forest.

Together we’ve taken on big corporations destroying forests and won. We supported Forest Defenders who were hit with a defamation lawsuit by Samling for exposing illegal logging. After global pressure from thousands of people, Samling dropped its lawsuit and stopped its illegal logging in Sarawak.

Let’s do it again and stop Sin Heng Chan from chopping down the Ulu Belaga forest.