Native customary rights land development for oil palm cultivation in Sarawak.

摘要

The creation of Native Customary Rights (NCR) land was a part of the culture and tradition of native people of Sarawak, Malaysia. This land is recognized as heritage and an instrument for their future generation's security. For the NCR landowners their cultural and heritage value supersede economic status of the land. There is an estimated 1.5 million ha of NCR land which are mostly kept idle, under-utilized and unproductive in the state of Sarawak. This potential land could be transformed into aneconomic asset through large scale plantation which will generate substantial benefits and economic growth to the landowners and rural community. Although the landowners have plenty of land it is beyond their capability to develop all of them due to lackof capital and expertise. Thus, the state government of Sarawak has formulated a 'joint venture' model to be adopted for NCR land development with mutual understanding and cooperation between NCR landowners and reputable private sector land developers.Large scale oil palm plantation is one of the most logical and perhaps the best option to bring the owners out of the poverty trap. A radical mental revolution is required to effect paradigm shift in perception of landowners towards developing their NCRland into commercial oil palm plantation.