SCRIPS turned Sarawak land claims into maps and won back 10 disputed plots

Long Bangan residents said oil-palm companies and government agencies had encroached on land they had used for generations. After negotiations failed, the community sued in 2010. The legal problem was not only encroachment: Indigenous land rights were often carried through oral tradition rather than formal deeds, while the defense could rely on official surveys and old aerial photographs.

SCRIPS responded by changing the evidence-making process. It interviewed residents about rivers, farms, fishing spots, churches, and graves; community members then collected coordinates with handheld GPS devices, and the team integrated the stories and locations in GIS. The method made the community's own account of land use visible and teachable, rather than leaving mapping to outside surveyors.

The legal outcome was partial but concrete. The High Court returned 10 of 39 disputed plots in 2014, the companies won on appeal, and the federal court restored those 10 plots to the community on July 7, 2021. SCRIPS treated the case as a reason to keep building local capability: at a 2022 workshop, 26 Indigenous learners practiced GPS mapping for village planning and potential court evidence.

A 2021 federal-court ruling returned 10 disputed plots to Long Bangan, while SCRIPS built community capacity to document future land claims.

Industrial expansion made customary land vulnerable before boundaries were formally recorded.

Oral histories alone were difficult to present against official surveys and aerial photographs.

GPS and GIS let residents preserve local landmarks and land use as shared, reviewable evidence.

Teaching the method created local capability that could outlast one lawsuit or one activist.

When customary land rights are hard to prove, turn inherited stories into shared, geolocated evidence so a community can make its claim legible without surrendering control of the story.

The 2021 ruling was only partial: Long Bangan recovered 10 plots, not all the land it claimed. SCRIPS kept running mapping workshops; in August 2022, 26 Indigenous learners practiced GPS plotting for village planning and potential court evidence, while legal recognition remained uneven.