Malaysia is believed to have lost between RM800mil and RM900mil a year to illegal logging, said Transparency International-Malaysia (TI-M) president Datuk Paul Low.
Saying this was the estimated worth of illegal logs going out of the country, Low added that he believed illegal logging was still “pretty much under control” in Peninsular Malaysia and that more attention needed to be paid to Sabah and Sarawak.
SABAH is fast becoming a trailblazer in sustainable forest management. This is evident from the numerous accolades, notably from the United Nations, World Wildlife Fund Malaysia, Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Prince Charles Charity, for the success of its forest conservation efforts.
IT will be interesting to see whether Malaysia will finally decide to support the European Union's (EU) new timber regulation that will come into force in January next year.
Despite 2012 being the deadline year, judging by the snail's pace Malaysia is taking to sign the bilateral voluntary partnership agreement (VPA) with the EU on its Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan, the accord might not even take place after all.
Smallholders, with less than 50 ha in Malaysia, are earning a steady income from the production of palm oil, which is linked to the large-scale corporate industry manufacturing oils, cosmetics components, biofuels, natural fertilisers and soaps, says Malaysian Minister of plantation industries and commodities Bernard Dompok.
About 40% of the country’s 18.2-million tons of palm oil production comes from small- holders, who consistently earn between R600/acre and R1 000/acre of mature palms each month.
REDD-plus is one of the most important policy tools for promoting sustainable forest management, especially in tropical countries where significantly large net losses of forest area have been observed in recent years. Malaysia is considered as a potential participant country in REDD-plus project particularly in reducing emission from forest degradation. Before engaging the mechanism the country needs to evaluate the capacity of its forest governance in particular because governance issues are emerging concern which could effects the efficiency and effectiveness of REDD-plus policies.
Malaysia is still able to maintain 56.4 per cent of its total land area as forested land, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas said Monday.
He described it as an encouraging achievement because many countries were not able to do so as their forest areas had been opened for development.
Malaysia and the European Union (EU) have made progress in talks on the Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA), said Minister of Plantation Industries and Commodities, Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok.
However, he said, the different forestry laws in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, needed to be ironed out before an agreement could be reached.
THE FIRST tropical rainforest in the world to be certified under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) standards for sustainable forest management is in Sabah, Malaysia. Back in 1997, the certification of Deramakot Forest Reserve was progressive; moves to create Malaysia’s own national forest certification had not even begun yet.
Today, five out of the seven FSC-certified forests in Malaysia are in Sabah and the state aims to have all its forestry concessions FSC-certified by 2014.
We are losing our natural forests to tree plantations yet on paper, all is well because these plantations are considered ‘forests’.
MOST of the wood-based products which we use in our daily life, be it paper or wooden furniture, are made from materials which have been sourced from forest plantations.
