This was conveyed to me by one of the natives, who hosted me during my recent trip into the hills of Gua Musang. An Orang Asli from the Temiar tribe, who is personally involved in the timber blockades set up to stop loggers, from encroaching into their customary land.

My host served a simple but delicious meal for lunch on the day of my visit. This is symbolic of the hospitable nature of the local Orang Asli, as well as a stark reminder of what they stand to lose, if the forest around them continue to be cut down, uprooting them from their way of life and source of sustenance.

There was roasted tapioca, fish, jackfruit, and more, with a helping of rice and sweet tea to wash it all down. His cat meowed incessantly and miserably from the adjacent room – begging to be let out to join the feast.

However, the mood around the floor (there was no table) was sombre, as my host Anga Anja, 42, pondered over whether his two grandchildren would be able to cook such a bountiful meal in the future.

Anga hails from the Temiar village of Kampung Barong, Gua Musang, and the land around him is threatened by deforestation. And the worry and anger over how this may impact their future, has stirred up the normally docile Orang Asli.

“It’s not even far away. It is just nearby, there are logging areas all around us. Yesterday they (loggers) said they want to cut down everything. It’s a forest reserve, they said,” Anga related.

At the national level, the loss of tree cover over the same period is at a comparable 19.1 percent.

Kelantan’s loss of tree cover also pales in comparison to that of Negri Sembilan, Johor and Malacca, which occupy the top three positions (33.9 percent, 31.5 percent, and 30.3 percent respectively) in Malaysia.

But then again, watching green pixels on Earth turn Martian-red from space does not tell the whole story.

For Anga and his fellow villagers, the effects of deforestation on their culture and livelihood is clear and ever present, something that we, as visiting outsiders can perhaps only understand if we see it with out own eyes.

Kampung Barong was the first stop of my trip, after spending the night at Kuala Lipis and leaving the luxury of driving on paved roads.

Reaching the village entailed covering almost 50km. The average passenger car would take half an hour to cover such a distance on the highway, but this trip took three hours over muddy roads and across rivers in rugged four-wheel drive vehicles.

The journey also took me and my videographer through vast swathes of land that had been recently cleared to make room for oil palm plantations, before we finally reached the jungle proper.

The tale of the Orang Asli disquiet is probably better told by the broken and muddy landscape we saw along the way. Land which used to be hallowed burial grounds, bountiful orchard groves and favourite hunting grounds.

The driver of the 4WD vehicle that brought me there said he was thankful we were never caught on the road with anything worse than a drizzle. Otherwise, even these these rugged off-road vehicles and their intimidatingly large tyres with deep threads, would get stuck in the mud.

At least that’s what he would tell me when he was not busy expressing his shock, over the land that used to be lush and verdant green during his last visit just a couple of years ago.

He was keen on staying out of trouble, so I won’t be identifying him, and he would be steering clear of both the Orang Asli’s and the Forestry Department’s blockades to avoid any possible confrontations.

The blockade was the first of its kind in Peninsular Malaysian and continues to be a running battle between both sides today. Then, as now, the blockades are being continuously torn down by authorities and put back up by the Orang Asli from time to time.

The Temiars had also taken the Kelantan government to court over the alleged violations of their customary land.

The state government had alleged that the Orang Asli’s resistance were instigated by outsiders. Their lawyer Siti Kasim was even accused of championing the indigenous community’s cause, just so that she can fight with the PAS-led Kelantan government.

“This issue in Kelantan is driven by political parties, working with those who oppose the implementation of Islamic laws such as Siti Kasim who is against the Kelantan state government, not an environmentalist and certainly far from being someone who cares about the Orang Asli,” PAS working central committee member Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor reportedly said last December.

“We fight with our mouths, with written letters. (Fist) fights, guns, adzes, blow darts are all left behind. We follow the law, the demand through the law, and we fight through the law,” Anga said.

“The plants in the forest are all gone, like our fruit trees. It’s hard to find anything, and that’s why we set up the blockades. We don’t like it,” he said.

“This issue should not be raised. The Orang Asli community in Kelantan is only about 10,000 and the area should be sufficient and need not be raised again,” Bernama quoted him as saying in a Dec 4 report last year.

“They said that these matters should be referred to the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa). When we met Jakoa, they said this is the Forestry Department’s matter. When we met with the Forestry Department, they refer us to the state government,” he said.

“If we were to take the (RM10,000) money just like that, we don’t want it. We don’t want to owe anyone anything,” he said.

Note regarding tree cover data: Not all tree cover are forests and the tally merely represents the presence of trees with canopy cover above 30 percent, and its loss. Such loss is not necessarily due to deforestation. For example, an existing plantation may be cleared to make room for new plants.

The figures are cited here as a proxy to the extent of deforestation, legal or otherwise, from an independent source.

The Global Forest Watch also provides data on tree cover gain, but is omitted here because differences in methodology do not allow for the tree cover loss and gain figures to be compared.