ISABELLE RICQ            


LETTER TO BRUNO MANSER


Letter to Bruno Manser is a photographic letter addressed to a man who mysteriously disappeared, from the place where he was last seen.

On a high plateau of the Borneo mountains is perched the village of Bario. Here, the Kelabit and Penan peoples have been co-existing for centuries, the former cultivating Sarawak’s most fertile soil, the latter roaming the surrounding forests. This is where on 23 May 2000 the Swiss activist Bruno Manser wrote a letter that to this day remains his last sign of life. He addressed it to his partner who had stayed in Europe and posted it from this village in eastern Malaysia.

After spending six years amid the Penan people, after sharing and initiating some of their struggles against logging companies, and after a price was put on his head by the local authorities, Bruno Manser disappeared without leaving a trace. He was officially declared dead in 2005. 

For those who are not familiar with his story or that of the region, we will provide a broad outline over the course of our pictures. To Bruno Manser we address this photographic letter from Bario, where we were able to observe just how relevant his claims still are and the progress made by his enemies of yesterday.

The book Letter to Bruno Manser has been published by Sturm & Drang.
This work has been completed with Christian Tochtermann.

HOMELANDS


Archaeological excavations testify of the presence of the Innu people in Canada's North-East coast 8000 years ago. Descendants of a community came by all appearances from Asia by foot, by taking the Bering strait during the last glaciation period, they used to be hunters and gatherers, and their material culture and believes are intimately bounded to the boreal forest and to the tundra they travel over. A rich territory they call Nitassinan.
With the arrival of the colonizers, the natural resources of the Nitassinan quickly provoked envy, and the Natives presence became a major impediment to their exploitation.

Spoiled, dominated, today the Innu people tries to look up and resist, in the heart of a Canadian nation that doesn't mention their existence in its History books...

This project has been achieved with Emmanuelle GRUNDMANN.



When we lose contact with nature, we have trouble respecting it. I do pity them, the ones who live in the cities. It's hard to see the stars over there.

Lauréat MOREAU

When the eldests leave, our memory disappears.

Manishan KAPESH

The eldest's culture is still very important. Today, the youngsters want to make it their own but the life in the woods, and everything we lived there, our roots, is barely lost because there are few eldests left who have these memories of the life in the forest.

Paul-Arthur McKENZIE

In the woods we used to sleep on a bed made of pine. It smell good and it unblocked the bronchial tubes. For the dishes we used moss, which is lush in the undergrowth, as for the red spruce, it offered us both a excellent heating wood and an ointment for scrapes and wounds.

Denis VOLLANT

For me, spirituality, it's this. What's around us. People, animals, trees.

Denis VOLLANT
Year after year, as soon as lakes and rivers began their thaw, the Innus left the woods to return near the coasts. First to fish capelins that beached to lay their eggs. Then, after the firsts colonizers' arrival, to barter the skins of beavers, caribous or martens for various vital products for the harsh winter to come.
This traditional cycle was broken in the 50's, when industry and capitalism established on the North coast. Cities rose up where the Innus used to set up their summer camp. Weirs harnessed the rivers that could no longer be sailed up in canoe during the traditional porterages.
Mines were dug, transforming these ancestral territories into wagons of iron and bauxite bounded for the capital city or abroad. Reservations were built to coop up the Innus who became undesirable and to seize their territory, their forest, their story, their soul. Here and there history repeted in the whole North American continent.

Before the colonizers' arrival, Native Americans were 18 millions. When the 20th century began, only 300.000. Today, 1 million.
Decimated by diseases, alcohol, distress.


The government has a very short memory. To protect us, to protect our environment... the treaties. They forgot everything.


Manishan KAPESH / Creator of traditional healing centre for Native Americans who suffer from aggressions or addictions

Our Berlin wall. There will be 150 meters of woods between the white people's houses and the extension of th Uashat reservation. White people don't want their houses brush by the Innus'. It might downgrade their real estate and above all they don't want to mix with us.


Roger VACHON

There are enough weirs to provide the entire Canada. But they always want more to export. They're destroying our territories, the environment, the animals. They don't care about future.


Suzanne and Véronique REGIS / Founders of Innuvelle, a monthly newspaper of native news, distributed in all the French-speaking reservations of Canada
For White people's majority, Quebec's history begins with the arrival of the first colonizers.

Before? Nothingness. A terra nullius. Empty. Uninhabited. Without any duty to do to monopolize it.

What the government submits to the Natives makes no sens. Like in a transplant, there are sometimes organs' rejections. This is what we are, a rejection. Nobody realize that, even my people. My people is depressed. There's no happiness anymore.


Manishan KAPESH

The wrench began when the White people imposed school. Then boarding schools. Reservations. We were threatened if we didn't go to school, children were taken by force. There was also the illusion of an easier life...

Lauréat MOREAU

We were forced to go to boarding schools so that our parents don't go anymore in the territories, and in order to exploit this land's wealth.

Manishan KAPESH

Kue Attinukan. 106,9FM in Matimekosh. This community radio belongs to us. It's a link between us all. During the hunting season we gonna do a message if caribous aren't far away. And the money we collect with bingo will be used in solidarity with the families who suffer a loss, for example.

Michel VOLLANT

In the past, life was tough in the wood. But still we returned hunting during the winter. Today, with the creation of the reservation, we stand around. We're given money to live. And this charity deaden people's mind. They loose their self-esteem, they don't have the strength to survive.

Denis VOLLANT

I was on the edge and I was already thinking about suicide. Even my daughter was scared about me. There was this emptiness inside of me. I went to the healing centre in Malio and damn! it helped me a lot and it still helps me. Everything bad I kept inside of me during 32 years finally came out.

Arthémise FONTAINE

Young people don't know who they are. They've lost their pride, their dignity.

Tadée ANDRE

On Sept-îles' peninsula a real communion existed between White and Innu peoples. It was harmony. We helped each other. It's the company that brought the parting. It shattered everything. Like the segregation period in the US, in the restaurants here for example, there were seats for Natives only.

Paul-Arthur McKENZIE

NO, NO, NO... no to uranium!
YES, YES, YES, yes to life!


White and Innu peoples demonstrate together against an uranium prospecting project.

We shed tears over our culture. It's like a desert. There's nothing left. You walk in the emptiness. It's like you don't possess anything left in your soul.
We just stand up.


Manishan KAPESH

Nowadays it's very political, this cultural resurgence. To pass our culture, our knowledge on, it's an act of resistance. We defend ourselves. We defend our cultural interests. If we didn't have that resistance, we would have become assimilated.


Roger VACHON

I hope one day I'll take you by the hand,
To show you where I am from.
I do hope.


Florent VOLLANT (Nipa Minuaten, Katak, 2006)


THE MEN WHO SOLD THE WORLD part I : DESTROY

Borneo : how the palm oil industry is destroying the last tropical forests of Indonesia.


THE MEN WHO SOLD THE WORLD part II : SUBDUE


Cameroon : The Socapalm company (Cameroonian company of palm groves) is Cameroon’s main producer of palm oil. This former state-owned company was privatized in the year 2000 for the benefit of the Belgian group Socfinal, of which the French group Bolloré holds 38.75%.

Far from appeasing the relations between these gigantic plantations and the local populations, privatization has exacerbated the conflicts and the new board of directors hardens the methods of yesteryear; destruction of surrounding forests, seizing of land, evictions of villagers, pollution of watercourses or widespread use of subcontracting.

In April 2009 Socapalm was looking for shareholders to enter the stock market: Become a shareholder of a flagship agribusiness in Cameroon, become a shareholder of Socapalm - Cameroon said the brochure.
The floor is given to the actors of this conflict.

This work has been achieved in February and March 2009, in collaboration with journalist NOMBA Danielle.


We lived there.

They asked us 200000 CFA [300 euros] to stay. As we could not pay they chased us out. It hurts me to see that. The people of Socapalm have come here a few times, we told them to leave us some forest to hunt but they do not want to.

The people of the plantation make fun of us, they call us monkeys, rats.


Pygmy village known as Bidou III

The children hang out because we do not have a school next door.

We do not have a health center either, we have nothing. There is a dispensary in the plantation but they refuse to treat us because we do not have a Socapalm registration number.

TOMI Thérésia
Inhabitant of the pygmy village known as Kilombo I

That's what’s left for us to hunt: rat.

Pygmy village known as Kilombo I

A tall man bought the land on which we lived without even coming to see us. They said that the land does not belong to us.

We Pygmies do not have land. Even where we are installed at the moment they can come and chase us away without asking our opinion.


NANGA Léon
Notable of the pygmy village known as Bidou III 

We are angry because we called on the director of Socapalm but he turned us back and told us that he did not have to talk to the villagers.

Socapalm has occupied all the surrounding forest, everything is already invaded, there is no forest left for us, and Socapalm does not accept that we farm here. They say we can not make a field in another field.

The plantations say they have already paid compensation for the occupation of the land, but we have not touched anything. Who took this money? Authorities?


NZIENLIMA Pius
Notable of the pygmy village known as Kilombo I

They threaten us. If they find a village field they sack it without asking our opinion. They say that the land belongs to them.

NZIENLIMA Pius
Notable of the pygmy village known as Kilombo I

Socapalm forbids us to go into their fields without being whipped by their guardians. If we take a nut, they beat us up and drive us to prison. Even if we go on their way, with or without nuts, they create a motive to beat us up.

They have security companies that work for them, they sometimes even come with the authorities to break our villages, but do they have permission to exercise their law out of the field?


YENGÉ Petit-Jean
Inhabitant of the pygmy village known as Kilombo I

The forest is no longer fertile here, and our only game today is the rat.

Sometimes we find hedgehog or porcupine but there are many species that we do not see anymore, such as buffaloes, antelopes or wild boars.

Pygmy village known as Kilombo I

Socapalm put me on my knees, Socapalm destroyed me, Socapalm shattered me, Socapalm turned me into a being who no longer exists and who may never exist again.

I had based all my projects, all my hopes, on the family land that you see there, and it is the artificial sewers created by the Socapalm: the sewage of the factory leave and destroy my field.


René SIMO
Chief of the Grand-Mifi community

They destroy all my crops. They destroy me.

Nothing grows, the bad ash comes out of the factory and covers everything. It can not grow, it can not give anything.


René SIMO
Chief of the Grand-Mifi community

We have to consume water from the river: upstream they wash their sprayers, their cans of eradication products, toxic products, chemical weed control and others and downstream we drink this water, we cook and wash with it.

The pre-privatization Socapalm had installed a generator and boreholes, we could drink good quality water. Today all these projects have fallen into ruin.


ELONG Emmanuel
Rural Development Officer, native of Mbonjo

We are the rights holders of the lands taken by the Socapalm, we have been expropriated, we want to recover our rights on the lands taken by the Socapalm.

We ask to see the specifications, notarial acts, promised infrastructures, schools, hospitals, roads, electricity.
They do not keep their word, they promised us schools, clinics, jobs, roads, local executives ...

Today we have no more land to work, we have become beggars, we must seek new lands to cultivate far from home.


MPAH TOMBÉ Raymond
Head of the Bomono Land Census Commission

People did not want to leave, they did not want to leave this village, so to leave they had to set their houses on fire.

It was 20 years ago, no one has ever been compensated.


MPAH TOMBÉ Raymond
Head of the Bomono Land Census Commission

Since 30 years Socapalm is installed we still have no electricity, our streets are not maintained.
At this very moment, they are sending back the Cameroonian executives and they are sending Western executives who are not even as competent as the locals. See this injustice.
How do you want us to support? And until when?

That's why we are fighting, because tomorrow or the day after tomorrow people will rise, and I would like this to be highlighted in red. Maybe I will not be here anymore, but if I'm here I'll be at the head of the rebellion.

[Isaac Mondo died 5 days after our interview]

His Majesty Isaac MONDO
Group Leader of Bomono-ba-Mbengué

When Socapalm settled here they asked all the villagers to leave the place and settle elsewhere.
The Caterpillar came to break the houses of those who did not want to leave.

The man who lives here insisted not to leave because his father's grave is there behind and because he has no land to go to.

So Socapalm surrounded his house with palm trees.


NGANDO Guillaume
Inhabitant of Mbonjo

This district of Mbonjo has been completely razed to the ground, there are only two houses left here, two dads who have decided to stay on their lands that now belong to the Socapalm.

The palm trees have invaded the house, they are in the Socapalm plantation.
There are palm trees in front of and behind the house and during the harvest the bunches fall on the roof, so we have to replace the sheets of metal every 3 months, and these expenses it is the father alone who supports them.


ELONG Emmanuel
Rural Development Officer, native of Mbonjo

Upon arrival Socapalm razed all the tombs that were not cemented, and then planted its palm trees on top. This is my grandfather's grave, it was the only one to be cemented in the village, so it's the only one left of this cemetery today.

It is not given to anyone to cement a grave, you must have the means, be a family a little wealthy. Between us in the village we tease each other, we say:  “And you, who are you, your father carries a palm tree on his head!


ELONG Emmanuel
Rural Development Officer, native of Mbonjo

I do not have a large plantation, being independent I manage to get out, it would not be the case with Socapalm, because they buy the ton cheaper, with them you hardly win 100,000 CFA francs per month [ 150 euros].

Socapalm could build schools, health centers, they have been in the area for more than 25 years but they have never done anything for the population.
We have young people in the village who are full of diplomas but who are unemployed. Socapalm hires only foreigners, as if we were worthless.


KOTTO MBELLÉ François
Independent planter since 1998

Mr. Director,

You can see that the small plot that Socapalm left to our parents is not enough to contain all three of us with our families. To avoid a revolt, which by comparing the two forces could only serve our destruction; we ask you, Mr. Director, to leave around the grant of our parents an area of at least six hectares for our hut and later those of each of our children.

We count on your prompt response and ask you to receive the expression of our devoted feelings.


Widow EPOUPA Marie
Inhabitant of Nkapa

The wages of the cutters were reassessed after two weeks of strike.

We can now expect to earn between 25,000 and 50,000 CFA francs per month [between 38 and 75 euros], depending on the season.

The shippers, meanwhile, receive 425 CFA francs per ton conveyed [64 euro cents].


Subcontracted workers of Socapalm plantations

Did you come to film the slaves?


Subcontracted workers from the Socapalm plantation in Kienke

Here everything is outsourced, Socapalm employees supervise the work only.
In Kienké there are more than 2000 contract workers for 330 Socapalm employees.


Gabain PONSU
Senior Assistant of the Socapalm Plantation of Kienke

You can film, it won’t change our situation.

Subcontracted workers from the Socapalm plantation in Kienke

Whoever says oil palm in a forest environment says inevitably threat because this monoculture depletes the soil, promotes erosion and the lure of profit that the palm represents is so strong that people do not hesitate to use wild practices.

Professor Martin FOUDA
Director of the professional Master in Environment of the University of Douala

These plantations operate on a colonial pattern, these lands are taken on the traditional lands of the communities.
What the settler did not understand was that there is no no man's land in Africa: there are rights on every forest area, there are communities claiming rights on these lands and on its resources.

Today, this model is perpetuated by giving land to large companies that create plantations on whose behalf the forest is cut and replaced by monocultures which, in addition, require large quantities of chemicals.

These communities can no longer feed themselves or heal themselves, nor can they completely adapt to the way of life they are trying to impose on them.
Cultural rights are not protected, and commercial rights are allocated without regard to indigenous peoples ... is this development?


Samuel NGUIFFO
Secretary General of the Center for Environment and Development

I knew the two phases of Socapalm's history since the company was privatized in the year 2000; I was therefore in a state company from 1987 to 2000, then in a private company since.

I think the difference is that a state-owned corporation is not about maximizing profits; we create a plantation for a social purpose, for the purpose of development, for the purpose of employment, but for a private company it is the profit which is the generating vector of all activity.

So the private sector minimizes the costs, reduces the basic expenses to get the best benefit.
There is a clear difference.


OUM Janvier
Director Fields, agricultural manager of the Socapalm plantation of Kienke

The name of Kilombo [name given to one of the pygmy camps] comes from a Brazilian soap opera about slavery that was broadcasted on Cameroon television in the 1980s.

Kilombo was the name of the village of rebel slaves.


Gabain PONSU
Senior Assistant of the Socapalm Plantation of Kienke

We are doing an extension of the plantation.

See the areas that are empty; we are going to replace these areas which are empty, which have been abandoned because at the time we did not move in the swampy lowlands or in the hills, but with the new techniques we can do drainages, we can plant in the lowlands. That's why we are recovering these lands that we could not exploit at the time of the state-owned company.
Our concession in Kienké represents 15000 ha, we have planted so far only 9200 ha, we hope to go up to 10000 soon, maybe more, who knows ?


OUM Janvier
Director Fields, agricultural manager of the Socapalm plantation of Kienke

The genetic block of the Socapalm unit in Kienké currently covers 54.17 hectares; here we have 70 different crosses, 70 hybrids

We study their behavior to select the best, according to the criteria, and we study their relationship with the types of fertilizer received. We wanted to test two new types of fertilizer that were not used before to improve the yield of selected palms.

There are ideal parameters for a palm tree for industrial production: a broad base, low growth so that bunches are easy to harvest, and good disease resistance.

Huguette MÉYOBEMÉ
Head of the genetic block and nursery of the Socapalm plantation of Kienke

We are never satisfied with the performance of our palm trees, we are never satisfied with our work, we must always strive for something better, and in terms of yields we have a margin of significant progress.

The old crops, which are plant material from the 80s, will be renewed and replaced by more efficient equipment, and it is hoped to reach tonnages of the order of 16 to 18 tons per hectare.


Jean-François PAJOT
Director of the Socapalm plantation Kienke


THE SIXTH CONTINENT

Alfred Russel Wallace was a British naturalist who did extensive field work in the Malay archipelago (nowadays called Indonesia) where he identified the Wallace line, dividing the flora, fauna and human specificities of the Eastern part of Indonesia from that of Asia.
Wallace even expressed the hypothesis that the Eastern part of Indonesia was formerly part of another continent now partly sunk beneath the ocean: a sixth continent.

From 1854 to 1862 he travelled through the Malay archipelago to collect specimens and to study Nature. His observations of the marked biological and zoological differences accross a narrow zone in the archipelago led him to the hypothesis of a zoogeographical boundary now known as “the Wallace line”.

His studies and adventures there were published in 1869.

This is the scientist's look of Wallace upon the nature of the archipelago and his words, sometimes cold, which my pictures attempt to illustrate.
Here the Wallace line is materialized by a dotted line, on the left side are pictures frop the western part of the archipelago, whereas on the right side only species from the eastern part are displayed.

All citations are extracted from The Malay Archipelago.
"It is an island-world, with insular ideas and feelings, customs, and modes of speech;
altogether cut off from the great continents into which we are accustomed to divide the globe, and quite incapable of being classed with any of them.
Its dimensions, too, are continental."
"In the whole region occupied by this volcanic belt earthquakes are of continual recurrence, slight shocks being felt at intervals of every few weeks or months,
while more severe ones, shaking down whole villages, are sure to happen in one part or another of this district almost every year."
"If the claim of Australia to be a fifth division of the globe be admitted, I would ask for this great archipelago to be considered a sixth. "
"Two very strongly contrasted races are found in this region: the Malays who inhabit almost exclusively the western half of the Archipelago ...”
“... and the Papuans whose head-quarters are New Guinea and some of the adjacent islands."
"The amount of diversity between these two regions is fully as great as exists between Africa and South America."
"The Malay hair is very constant, being invariably black and straight."

"The Papuan hair is very peculiar, being harsh, dry, and frizzly, growing in little tufts or curls."

"The colour of the typical Malay is a light reddish-brown, with a more or less olive tint. The colour may be compared to that of cinnamon or half-roasted coffee, and it is on the whole very constant over a wide extent of country."

"The colour of the Papuan people is a deep sooty-brown or black, sometimes approaching but never quite equalling the jet-black of some African tribes. It varies in tint more than that of the Malay, and is sometimes a dusky-brown."

"The hair of the Malay people is very constant [...] so much so that any lighter tint, or any wave or curl however slight, is rarely met with, and may I believe be considered a sure proof of the admixture of some foreign blood."
"At length I am in Celebes! I have been here about three weeks, and as yet have not done much, except explored the nakedness of the land. And it's indeed naked.
I have never seen a more uninteresting country than the neighbourhood of Makassar."

"The arms, legs, and breasts of the Malays are, to use a common expression, as smooth as the palm of one's hand, and almost as completely destitute of any growth of hair."

"The face of Papuan men is adorned with a beard of the same frizzly nature as the hair of the head. The arms, legs, and breast are also clothed with hair of a similar nature."
"The arms, legs, and breasts of the Malays are, to use a common expression, as smooth as the palm of one's hand, and almost as completely destitute of any growth of hair."

"The face of Papuan men is adorned with a beard of the same frizzly nature as the hair of the head. The arms, legs, and breast are also clothed with hair of a similar nature."
"The Malay forehead is rather rounded, the brows low, the eyes black and very slightly oblique."

"The Papuan face is somewhat elongated, the forehead flattish, the brows very prominent."
"Where shall we find human types offering more remarkable contrasts than these?
If mankind can be classed at all into distinct varieties, surely the Malays and Papuans must be kept for ever separate."
"There seems every reason to believe that human kind may have also existed at the time when a great continent occupied the tropical portions of the Pacific Ocean. [...] I believe that the Papuan people are descended from the inhabitants of a land that has now in great part sunk beneath the ocean."