Oil and Gas
Sabah is a major oil and gas producer. Petronas, the Malaysian national oil company, operates extensive offshore fields in Sabah's waters. Under current arrangements, Sabah receives only a 5% royalty — a fraction of what comparable arrangements provide in other jurisdictions. The vast majority of the revenue from Sabah's oil and gas flows to the federal government and to Petronas shareholders, with minimal benefit to the Sabahan people.
Timber and Forestry
Once covered by some of the most biodiverse tropical rainforest in the world, Sabah has lost enormous areas of forest to commercial logging and agricultural conversion. Logging concessions were awarded to politically-connected companies over decades. While conservation efforts have increased in recent years, the legacy of uncontrolled logging — eroded soils, polluted rivers, displaced communities, lost biodiversity — cannot be easily reversed.
Palm Oil and Land Rights
The expansion of oil palm plantations has been a major driver of both deforestation and land dispossession in Sabah. Indigenous communities have seen their ancestral territories converted to monoculture plantations, with little or no compensation and no meaningful consent process. The economic benefits of palm oil production flow overwhelmingly to outside investors and the federal treasury, not to the Sabahans on whose land the industry depends.