A moving homage to Bruno Manser

17 years ago, Bruno Manser, a Swiss campaigner for the rights of the Penan nomads of Sarawak, Malaysia, disappeared without a trace. A new film tells his story. (SRF/swissinfo.ch) 

He had lived with the nomads for six years before fleeing the country with a bounty on his head. He spent the 1990s advocating on behalf of the Penan through his organisation, the Bruno Manser Fund, by giving lectures, writing books and by appearing in films and on television. 

A new documentary film “The Borneo Case” shows how his struggle is being continued by his friends and allies. The story, filmed over 25 years, documents the destruction of more than 90% of Sarawak’s forests and investigates where the profits from the destruction went. It begins with Bruno Manser’s disappearance in the jungles of Borneo in May 2000. Manser was officially declared dead in Switzerland in 2005.