Born 1960
Sarawak, Malaysia

Native Malaysian environmentalist and indigenous rights activist

In the late 1970s Harrison Ngau joined the movement opposed to logging in the rainforest on his native island of Borneo. In the 1980s he formed a chapter of Friends of the Earth and drew world attention to the plight of Borneo’s indigenous groups, who were being driven out of their ancestral homelands by logging. Ngau organized the rainforest dwellers to resist the timber companies’ equipment, with their bodies if necessary. In 1990 Ngau won a seat in the Malaysian parliament and successfully campaigned for a law protecting tribal lands in his home state of Sarawak.

Raised in traditional community

Ngau (pronounced ngo; the “ng” sounds like the end of “song”) was born in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, on the northern portion of the island of Borneo (Borneo is...