Bruno Manser

Bruno Manser (25 August 1954 – presumed dead 10 March 2005) was a Swiss environmentalist and human rights activist.

Bruno Manser was born in Basel, Switzerland, on 25 August 1954 in a family of three girls and two boys.

During his younger days, he was an independent thinker.

His parents wanted him to become a doctor, and he studied medicine informally.

Manser later completed his upper secondary school, the first in his family to do so.

At age 19, Manser spent three months in Lucerne prison because, as an ardent follower of non-violent ideologies espoused by Mahatma Gandhi (Satyagraha), he refused to participate in Switzerland's compulsory military service.

After leaving prison in 1973, he worked as a sheep and cow herder at various Swiss Alpine pastures for twelve years.

During this time, Manser became interested in handicrafts, therapeutics, and speleology.

He laid bricks, carved leather, kept bees, and wove, dyed, and cut his own clothes and shoes.

He also regularly pursued mountaineering and technical climbing.

At the age of 30, Manser went to Borneo, looking to live a simpler life.

In 1983, Manser went to the Malaysian state of Terengganu and stayed with a family.

From 1984 to 1990, he stayed with the Penan tribe in Sarawak, Malaysia, organising several blockades against timber companies.

In 1984, while learning more about the rainforests, Manser learned of a nomadic tribe known as the Penan.

After learning more about the tribe, he decided to attempt to live amongst them for a few years and traveled to the East Malaysian state of Sarawak in 1984 on a tourist visa.

In Malaysia, Manser first joined an English caving expedition to explore Gunung Mulu National Park.

After the expedition, he stepped deeper into the interior jungles of Sarawak, intending to find the "deep essence of humanity" and "the people who are still living close to their nature."

However, he quickly became lost and ran out of food while exploring the jungle, then fell ill after eating a poisonous palm heart.

After these setbacks, Manser finally found Penan nomadic tribes near the headwaters of the Limbang river at Long Seridan in May 1984.

Initially, the Penan people tried to ignore him.

After a while, the Penan accepted him as one of their family members.

In August 1984, Manser went to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, to obtain a visa to visit Indonesia.

On the Indonesian visa, he entered Kalimantan, then illegally crossed the border back into Long Seridan.

His Malaysian visa expired on 31 December 1984.

Manser learned about survival skills in the jungle and familiarized himself with the Penan's culture and language.

The Penan tribal leader in Upper Limbang, named Along Sega, became Manser's mentor.

During his stay with the Penan, Manser adopted their way of life.

He dressed in a loincloth, hunted with a blowgun, and ate primates, snakes, and sago.

Manser's decision to live as a member of the Penan was ridiculed in the West, and he was dismissed as a "White Tarzan".

Within the Penan, however, Manser was known as "Laki Penan" (Penan Man), having earned the respect of the tribe that adopted him.

Manser created notebooks that were richly illustrated with drawings, notes, and 10,000 photographs during his six-year stay from 1984 to 1990 with the Penan people.

Some of his sketches include cicada wing patterns, how to carry a gibbon with a stick, and how to drill holes on a blowpipe.

These notebooks were later published by Christoph Merian Verlag press in Basel.

Manser also created audio recordings of oral histories told by Penan elders and translated them.

He claimed that the Penan people were never argumentative or violent during his time with them.

In 1988, Manser tried to reach the summit of Bukit Batu Lawi but was unsuccessful, finding himself hanging on a rope without anything to grab on for 24 hours.

In 1989, he was bitten by a red tailed pit viper but was able to treat the snake bite himself.

After he emerged from the forests in 1990, he engaged in public activism for rainforest preservation and the human rights of indigenous peoples, especially the Penan, which brought him into conflict with the Malaysian government.

He also founded the Swiss non-governmental organization (NGO) Bruno Manser Fonds in 1991.

Manser disappeared during his last journey to Sarawak in May 2000 and is presumed dead.