On 7 February 2007, the Malaysian police cleared a logging road blockade that a group of Penan had set up to protect one of Sarawak ’s last remaining areas of tropical rainforest from logging by the Samling corporation. Many Penan communities, such as the nomadic Penan group under chieftain Along Sega, are repeatedly threatened by bulldozers of the Samling corporation. Together with other companies, Samling has already destroyed large parts of the rainforests on the Penan's native lands.

During September of 2007 the Malaysian Timber Certification Council threatened to revoke its certification of 56 000 hectares of tropical forest in the Upper Baram region of Sarawak unless the Samling resolves a land conflict with blockading Penan communities. The company has until November to comply.

Samling fails to meet basic ecological and social standards in other countries too. In January 2007, Samling’s subsidiary Barama had its Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) suspended after an independent review revealed 'major systematic nonconformities' with FSC standards. We understand that Barama does not intend to contest this decision. Barama is also logging Amerindian lands without prior, informed consent of indigenous communities.

Samling and its related companies have been involved in illegal logging activities in the past in Cambodia and Papua New Guinea. By cooperating with Samling on the occasion of its listing on the Hong Kong stock exchange, Credit Suisse, HSBC and Macquarieare making themselves part of the irresponsible and destructive logging practices and human rights violations of the Samling group, and are helping Samling to raise money to continue such activities.

4500 signatures were presented to the Credit Suisse officials by the friends of Bruno Manser, the missing Swiss rainforest conservationist who fought for the rights of the Penan people of Borneo’s rainforests last seen in area controlled by a Samling concession in the Malaysian state of Sarawak in May 2000.

By helping to raise money for Samling, HSBC appears to be in direct contravention of its own forests policy, which says that the bank will not do business with companies logging primary tropical moist forest – something that Samling does.