Posts
Three Class II Forest Reserves (Commercial) with a total size of 176,780 hectares have been reclassified as Forests (Constitution of Forest Reserves and Amendment) (Amendment) Enactment 2012 Bill was passed unanimously at the State Legislative Assembly. Tabling the Bill, Asst. Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Radin Malleh said the amendment was also made to de-gazette 4,560.20 hectares of forest reserves by way of land swap with State land. A the same time, new forest reserves with a total size of 4,642.68 hectares to replace the de-gazetted forest reserves will be created.
He said the commercial forest reserves converted into protected forest reserves converted into protected forest reserves was the Gunung Rara Class II Forest Reserve that would be named Mount Magdalena Forest Reserve Class I (Protection) and Ulu Segama Forest Reserve would be reclassified as Ulu Segama Forest Reserves Class I (Protection) (127,798 hectare) and Danum Valley Forest Reserve Class I (Protection) (Extension) (92 hectare).
The reclassification exercise, among others, was to create the wildlife corridor linking Lembah Danum, Maliau Forest Reserve and Imbak Canyon Forest Reserve. It was also to make the area into a research and education environment as about 400 active researches were currently being conducted in Danum Valley Forest Reserves and Ulu Segama Forest Reserve.
Radin said the de-gazettement exercise involves seven areas among them in Semporna comprising Tanjong Nagas Forest Reserve Class 1 (Protection) (708 hectare) and Mount Pock Forest Reserve Class I (Protection) (1,388 hectare) that would be alienated for Communal Title.
Through the amendment, he said the state permanent forest reserve would be increased form 3,609,167.07 hectares to 3,609,249.55. He assured that the State Government would only alienate land form forest reserves once the area to be swapped has been identified.
At the same time, forest reserves proposed for de-gazettement were those problematic ones and no longer productive, which would be looked into by the State Government in the future according to priority.
Source : Daily Express
Photo: junglemikey.blogspot
26 comments:
Sabah government has turned to oil palms for income as timber royalties have fallen sharply over the last 20 years and are likely to remain low for the next 20 years as it bans log and sawn timber exports to produce sustainable timber and to preserve forests.
Sabah government has turned to oil palms for income as timber royalties have fallen sharply over the last 20 years and are likely to remain low for the next 20 years as it bans log and sawn timber exports to produce sustainable timber and to preserve forests.
set up in 1996, is a subsidiary of Innoprise Corporation, a commercial arm of the Sabah Foundation, and is developing an agro-forestry plantation of about 48,000 hectares split almost equally between tropical tree plantation to produce high quality sustainable timber products and oil palm estates.
According to Manan, under Musa’s leadership, SFM had improved by leaps and bounds.
He said short-term licences that caused tremendous damage to the environment were being drastically phased out.
Sabah’s forest management credibility is now at its highest.
We have an open-book philosophy whereby, logging and forest management areas are all open to third party and NGO scrutiny.
The good, the bad and the ugly are laid bare with the intention of improving standards and practices on the ground.
Even the planned drop in forest revenue [about RM150 million a year today as opposed to RM500 million to RM1 billion in the past], is also a deliberate strategy to ensure that the forests are given a chance to recover.
Manan also pointed out that since Musa took the reins of the government, the totally protected area (TPAS) reserves in Sabah had increased.
Currently, TPAS is reaching 1.3 million hectares or about 20% of Sabah’s total land area, exceeding even the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) standard of 10%.
The latest addition is the wildlife corridor linking Maliau Basin, Imbak Canyon to Danum/Ulu Segama and the re-classification of Ulu Segama (130,000ha) to total protected status.
Under Musa, we have seen the greatest extent of TPAS expansion in the history of Sabah, despite the enormous opportunity cost of conservation.
Despite the widespread allegations of illegal deforestation, Sabah was still receiving international acreditation.
The enormity of the alleged extent of illegal felling [1 million m3] could not have escaped the attention of the world.
A well-stocked forest of 20,000ha badly logged because of illegal felling would have been easily detected by satellites and attracted the attention of NGOs, environmentalists and the communities living nearby.
No way could such acts be committed and passed without notice.
If 50% of the annual production of timber from Sabah was alleged to be illegal, world markets especially sensitive ones like Europe, North America and Japan would have long ago stopped buying timber from Sabah.
The enormous economic and financial implications would have been harmful to the state as a whole.
This never occurred because the alleged large-scale illegal logging never happen,” he said, adding that Sabah’s long-term licences have been subjected to third-party auditing (independent audit) since 2010.
Under the Malaysia-ECTLAS Timber Legality Assurance Programme, the independent auditors would have detected any large-scale illegal felling.
Currently at least 800,000ha of Sabah’s forests are partially or fully certified under various internationally recognised system such as FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), MTCS (Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme) and PEFC (Pan European Forest Scheme).
This included the 250,000ha of fully certified and 150,000ha of partially certified forest areas under the Sabah Foundation.
Many more forest areas are being earmarked for certification as Sabah has set 2014 as the year for all long-term licensed areas to be fully certified.
The process of certification means independent third party is on the ground auditing to assess credibility.
If such allegations were true, why does Sabah continue to attract the attention of certifying bodies and NGOs, who want to be our partners and to assist us in obtaining veritable and certifiable good governance?
Post a Comment