Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) says forest-to-plantation conversions must be halted to prevent floods that hit Kelantan at the year-end. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, January 19, 2015.Kelantan has seen a large tract of its gazetted permanent reserve forests (PRF) converted into plantations, said an environmental watchdog, pointing out that such loss of natural forests will spell disaster for the environment.As the impoverished east coast state recovers from the year-end floods that displaced more than 200,000 people in the northeastern part of the peninsula, Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) warned that all forest-to-plantation conversions must be halted to prevent future calamities."In fact, such plantations should not even belong in our gazetted forests," said its president S.M. Mohamed Idris in a statement today.Unlike natural forests, which have high biodiversity and diversity of vegetation, forest plantations are usually planted with latex timber clone and other timber trees, and SAM warned that such monoculture farms were disastrous for water catchments, the ecosystems and biodiversity.SAM said nationwide, forested areas classified as timber tree plantations soared by 200% within five years, from 108,512ha in 2008 to 324,417ha in 2013, making it 6.6% of PRFs.The non-governmental organisation said Kelantan registered the largest bulk of PRF areas classified as timber tree plantations, at 162,485ha, or 26% of its PRF measuring 623,849ha.Another 199,352ha within its PRF has been designated as latex timber clone plantation (LTC) zone, according to the Kelantan Forestry Department website although it does not mean the entire area will be developed.Latex timber is a type of rubber tree grown for timber.However, by 2010, 115 companies had received approval from the state to establish LTC plantations on 91,030 ha or 14.6% of its PRF.SAM said this was followed by Perak, which had 56,503ha hectares its PRF areas classified as plantations or 5.6% of its 1 million ha PRF, followed by Johor at 45,544ha or 10.5% of its PRF (432,209ha).Pahang stood at 31,831ha or 2% of its PRF (1.56 million ha) while Terengganu had much less, at 3,833ha or 0.7% of its PRF (544,855 ha).The NGO also said, in 2012, a total of 13,486ha of forest plantations were licensed for harvesting, with Kelantan taking the lead with 5,824ha, followed by Pahang (5,183ha) and Johor (2,479 ha).In 2013, 6,947ha were licensed out for harvesting; Pahang (5,421ha), Kedah (889ha), Johor (557ha) and Perak (80ha).In Sabah, the state has about 265,904ha of timber tree plantations, of which 130,184ha were located within its forest reserves.SAM said by 2013, the size of such plantations had increased to 271,110ha, of which 149,507ha were located in its forests reserves.In the same year in Sarawak, the Borneon state had issued 43 tree plantation licences over some 2,827,372ha under its licence for planted forest (LPF) system, with plantable areas estimated at 1,595,398ha.Many of the LPF areas are also located within the state’s gazetted permanent forest estate (PFE) and by 2012, some 306,486ha of the LPF areas had already been cultivated.A year later, the figure climbed to 471,892ha and of this, 325,314ha were cultivated with timber trees while another 146,578ha were planted with oil palm."The most urgent question here is naturally, when will the expansion stop? In fact, this aggressive development of timber tree plantations by the states seems to be in line with the National Timber Industry Policy 2009 to 2020," said Idris.Between 2006 and 2020, the policy targeted the establishment of 375,000ha of timber tree plantations in selected sites all over the country, for which RM180 million has been allocated as an “initial" sum to assist the industry.As such, SAM wanted to the Plantation Industries and Commodities Ministry to state if it has any intention to review the policy’s express ambitions.The NGO also wanted the relevant authorities to put an end to the misleading practice of classifying timber, rubber and oil palm plantations as forested areas.The Malaysian Insider had reported early this month that environmentalists had pinpointed clear-cutting of forests for Kelantan’s controversial "ladang rakyat" (people's plantation) programme as a cause of the massive floods that hit the state.These claims come as Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob denied that state-sanctioned logging had contributed to the floods, which affected 100,000 people at its height, saying that deforestation was the result of illegal land clearing.They said the programme saw huge tracts of forests in Gua Musang and Kuala Krai – two of the worst hit districts – being cleared to create LTC plantations. – January 19, 2015.
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น :
แสดงความคิดเห็น