Issued by DAYAK INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION (DIO), Permanent Representative to the United Nations on Indigenous Rights
KOTA KINABALU: The Dayak International Organization (DIO) issues this formal warning regarding the High Altitude Training Centre (HATC) at the Sayat-Sayat zone of Mount Kinabalu, known traditionally as Aki Nabalu.
The ongoing structural drilling and physical alteration of this peak represent a violation of indigenous customary laws protected under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The state’s efforts to advance this project using an administrative advisory council to bypass grassroots consent undermine the legal traditions of the Momogun and KadazanDusun peoples.
Aki Nabalu is not a real estate asset or a commercial playground for state monetization. It is a living, sacred entity and ancestral repository holding sovereign customary boundaries. The current state policy, which aggressively protects physical tourism infrastructure while failing to penalize cultural and spiritual defilement, constitutes a dual system that harms indigenous heritage.
The Dayak International Organization demands an immediate halt to all high-altitude construction, drilling, and modular assembly at Sayat-Sayat. We call for a full, independent audit of the environmental and sewage impacts on local water catchments.
The DIO is preparing to take this matter directly to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network to challenge the commercial commodification of our sacred sites. The state must respect the borderless customary sovereignty of the Dayak nation and acknowledge the legal personhood of Aki Nabalu.
Failure to halt this encroachment will lead to international legal challenges and defensive mobilizations across the Borneo archipelago.
Signed,
Secretariat General
Dayak International Organization (DIO)
United Nations Permanent Representative Body
