showed that they were not willing to see the issues as they are and address them accordingly; rather, they saw it as an affront to their leadership and management ability and sought to defend the actions of their staff or their department. Frequently, they resort to repeating written policies, detailing programmes, statistics, allocations, as their proof of the effectiveness of their efforts and the good intention of the government. However, it is evident from such replies that they are not aware of what was actually happening on the ground, a result perhaps of fleeting working visits or reliance on less than accurate reporting from their subordinates. The stance taken by officers of the JHEOA whenever the interest of the Orang Asli is juxtaposed against that of the state, can be best illustrated by the following article from The Star of 22 March 1998: The Star, 22 July 1998 A BURNING ISSUE By Meng Yew Choong WHILE plantations, which tend to be owned by large corporations, could still get by (albeit at a cost) without using fire, the same cannot be said of the tens of thousands of smallholders or subsistence farmers. These people often do not have the massive resources needed to practise zero-burning agricultural techniques. For these farmers, fire is a multipurpose tool, says Datuk Ahmad Arshad, president of the National Association of Smallholders. Fire eradicates pathogens and weeds that may reside in topsoil and vegetation; it loosens soil and prepares it for planting almost immediately -- doing the same with a tractor can cost up to RM250 a day, a sum beyond most smallholders’ means; fire also produces fertiliser after the biomass is reduced to ash—a fertiliser that is much cheaper than chemical ones. ORANG ASLI – RIGHTS, PROBLEMS & SOLUTIONS 69