Sarawak (Malay pronunciation: [saˈrawaʔ]) is one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo. It is also one of the founding members of the Malaysian federation alongside North Borneo (Sabah), Singapore (expelled in 1965) and the Federation of Malaya (Peninsula Malaysia or West Malaysia). Like Sabah, this territory has an autonomous law especially in immigration, which differentiates it from the rest of the Malaysian Peninsula states. Today, the state is known as Bumi Kenyalang ("Land of the Hornbills").

Sarawak is situated on the northwest of Borneo, bordering the state of Sabah to the northeast, Indonesia to the south, and surrounding the independent state of Brunei. The administrative capital is Kuching, which has a population of 700,000. Major cities and towns include Miri (pop. 350,000), Sibu (pop. 257,000) and Bintulu (pop. 200,000). As of the last census (2010), the state population was 2,420,009.

Sarawak's rainforests have been gradually depleted by the demand driven by the logging industry and the introduction of palm oil plantations.Many of Sarawak's rural communities have felt changes affected by the economic activity of these industries. Peaceful protests and timber blockades between native communities and logging companies are common, often resulting in preventive police action. The Penan, Borneo's nomadic hunter-gatherers have been most affected by these changes, complaining of illness through polluted rivers, game depletion resulting in widespread hunger and loss of traditional medicines and forest products. Their resistance to logging companies culminated in a series of protests and timber blockades in the 1990s, of which many were dismantled by the Police, within the remit of the law. The Penan claim that their rights are not respected by the State nor by logging companies. Another example, the native customary rights court case of Rumah Nor in the Kemena Basin gave rural communities engaged in subsistence farming hope for continued communal use of land reserves. Although the Court of Appeal ruled against Rumah Nor on the grounds that they had not produced sufficient evidence for their claim, it nevertheless upheld the principles stated by the lower court. These principles are the basis of not only Rumah Nor's claim, but of the claims of all Sarawak's native communities as that native customary rights are not created by legislation, although they can be extinguished by legislation, on condition of adequate compensation, and these communities have a territory including forest reserves and rivers, and farmland, including land under fallow. Thus although the Court of Appeal ruled against Rumah Nor's specific claims, it upheld the lower court's ruling in favour of Rumah Nor with regard to the general principles.

Malaysia's deforestation rate is increasing faster than anywhere else in the world. Statistics estimate Sarawak's forests have been depleted but there is no definitive study to know how much. Malaysia's deforestation rates overall are among the highest in Asia, jumping almost 86 percent between the 1990–2000 period and 2000–2005. In total, Malaysia lost an average of 1,402 km² —0.65 percent of its forest area—per year since 2000. The rainforest is the habitat of endangered animals, including borneo pygmy elephant, proboscis monkey, orangutans and rhinoceroses.