Bruno Manser Rainforest activist
Bruno Manser in the Swiss Alps in 1982
In 1984, Manser went to Borneo for the first time.
He was looking for the nomadic Penan, who live in the rainforest.
Bruno Manser in a 1986 portrait by Alberto Venzago
Another shot by Venzago for a report in GEO magazine in 1986
Immense rainforest destruction
Cabinet minister Ruth Dreifuss and Bruno Manser knitting sweaters for the Swiss cabinet in Bern in March 1993
Construction of a new gas pipeline in the northern part of Sarawak requires major cuts through the rainforest.
Pictured in Bern in April 1993, Bruno Manser and Martin Vosseler went on a hunger strike to call for a Swiss embargo on tropical wood products.
Manser returned to Europe regularly to campaign for the rainforest and its inhabitants.
The Penan blocking loggers in Sarawak, Malaysia, near the community of Long Ajeng
Bruno Manser as a Penan-like fisher and hunter
A Penan woman feeds a hornbill, known as Metui in the Penan langauge.
The late Ara Potong, leader of Ba Pengaran Kelian
Bruno Manser with Penan leader Along Sega
Peng Meggut from the Limbang region still lives as a nomad.
Bruno Manser pictured in Sarawak in May 2000, shortly before his disappearance
Twilight skies above the rainforest
Swiss shepherd Bruno Manser was working in Graubünden when he decided to move to Sarawak in 1984. He won the trust of the Penan, adopted their simple lifestyle, and ended up staying for six years before returning to Switzerland – from where he launched a tireless battle against the logging industry and its destruction of the jungle.
He became a household name in Switzerland in the 1990s when he staged a 60-day hunger strike outside the Swiss parliament to highlight the plight of the Penan.
Manser disappeared in the Malaysian jungle in 2000, and a Swiss court declared him dead five years later. The work he began continues through the Bruno Manser Fund, based in Basel.
(Images: Bruno Manser Fonds)
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