The building of the Bakun dam resulted in the displacement of some 10,000 indigenous people who were forcibly moved from the 70,000 hectare reservoir and catchment area to a 4,000 hectare sponsored resettlement site at Sungai Asap. In building the dam, about 700 square kilometers of farmlands and forest were flooded. The people living in this area had previously subsisted on the land around them providing for agriculture, hunting, and gathering of forest products.