Environment : In Malaysia, a Culture Is Undercut : * Deforestation is forcing an age-old tribe out of the jungle to find a new lifestyle.

Jalong Kepe has the traditional looped ears and bowl-shaped haircut that marks him unmistakably as a member of the Penan, a survivor of the world’s last tribe of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. Instead of the traditional loincloth, however, he wears blue jeans and a T-shirt bearing the logo of an oil company.

Jalong Kepe was raised to live off the forest, using a six-foot blowpipe to kill wild game and to snare fish from the rivers of Sarawak, a remote Malaysian state on the island of Borneo.

But Jalong Kepe and others in his long house, the equivalent of a multifamily dwelling, now eke out a living selling wicker baskets in this market town for the equivalent of $8 apiece.

“Our way of life has died out,” he said. “Our food comes from the forest, and now it’s all gone.”

The Penan’s lifestyle has changed drastically because of logging, which has devastated the forests of Sarawak at a scale faster than anywhere else on Earth. There are fewer animals in the forest to eat, and the rivers are so silted because of the lack of trees that all the fish have died.

“Before the logging, we used to eat three times a day,” said Liman Avun, a Penan from Long Beluk. “Now we eat twice a day, sometimes only once.”

The Penan, who number about 10,000, have been largely settled into semi-permanent communities by the government, which believes they are better off wearing trousers and speaking Malaysian instead of Penan.

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed said after an environmental protest this month that the Penan “cannot be allowed to become anthropological specimens for foreigners to gawk at.” He denounced Westerners who worry about the treatment of the Penan, saying, “Some white people think we do not know how to administer our country--they must show us how to.”

Britain’s Prince Charles caused an uproar in Malaysia when he spoke out about the Penan last year, saying that “the dreadful pattern of genocide continues.” The British government took the unusual step of saying that the prince’s remarks were not official, but Charles refused to apologize.

Meanwhile, the number of nomadic Penan is believed to have dwindled to less than 200.

“The situation is getting critical for the Penan,” said Harrison Ngau, an environmental campaigner who last October was elected as an independent to Parliament, so strong is the anti-logging feeling in the region. “There is hardly any land left around the Penan settlements. More than any other tribe, the Penan really depend on the forests.”

Ngau, who collected a Goldman Environmental Prize in San Francisco last year for his efforts to put controls on timber companies, estimated that logging was taking 18 million cubic meters of timber every year, a rate that could wipe out the forests by the year 2000.

“It’s no longer a question of a culture which will be extinct, but now it’s become a question of survival,” said Bruno Manser, a Swiss shepherd who lived among the nomadic Penan for nearly six years until he was expelled by the Malaysian government for allegedly fomenting trouble.

“In the last five years, more than half, let’s say two-thirds, of their traditional area has been destroyed,” Manser said.

The nomadic way of life had its dark spots as well, depending heavily on magic and superstition. The first wave of change came when missionaries brought Christianity to the forests.

To be sure, many of the Penan now living in settlements went voluntarily, hoping to gain education for their children and development benefits such as instruction in farming techniques and medical care for their families.

“That’s why we settled,” said Juwin Lihan, president of the Penan Assn. of Sarawak. “But if the government says it is going to develop there and then destroys our property, what can we do?”

The answer for many of the gentle Penan was to establish blockades on logging roads, cutting down trees and blowing up bridges for the last five years in a last desperate attempt to save their forest.

“When I see all the trees cut down, I really want to cry,” Lihan said through an interpreter. “We really hope the government or somebody can stop the cutting.” Instead, the government has arrested more than 200 Penan who have taken part in the blockades, including 23 in one demonstration last month at a place called Long Napir.

Long Napir is the site of logging operations by Limbang Trading Co., a huge timber concession that is, ironically, owned by Sarawak Environmental Minister James Wong.

One of the largest timber merchants in the state, Wong told a local newspaper this month that he believes the crowning achievement of his life was raising the quality of public restrooms in the state capital of Kuching.

Awarding timber concessions in Sarawak is left up to the local governments. Environmentalists say that many of the most profitable concessions have been given to politicians or their relatives.

The Penan contention is that the land is theirs by tradition while the government asserts that the Penan never legally obtained ownership.

The Penan see their culture dying out because they now need money to survive, where in the past they would live off the forests.

“It’s very sad to see this,” said Manser. “It’s a great thing to see a culture that has no need for money, in which everyone shares everything, including their food. The process is irreversible--the Penan cannot go back now and live off the land again.”

The teen-age sons of the settled Penans no longer loop their ears or wear the tribal hair cuts so that they can be considered “Malaysian” in school and eligible for jobs.

“The government promised to give us development if only we would settle down and make a settlement,” said Lihan, the Penan leader. “Now nomads look at us and they don’t want to follow in our footsteps because they see so many problems.”

WHO ARE THE PENAN? For 40,000 years, the gentle, nomadic Penan have roamed the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. There, in the world’s oldest rain forest, the Penan have survived solely on the forest and its products for food, shelter and medicine.

The Penan are primitive, pagan, normally timid people of small stature. They live in the jungle, with little contact outside world.

They first ventured out of the forest around the turn of the century to trade with the British for, among other things, metals from which they fashioned spears. (Malaysia was a British colony from 1867 to 1957.)

Shortly after World War II, intensive logging began along the well-established trade routes of Sarawak’s main rivers. As the logging destroyed their environment, some Penan retreated farther into the forest while others, encouraged by the government, resettled in long houses. Now, only 300-600 of the remaining 10,000 Penan are still nomads, unwilling to give up their old lifestyle.