KOTA KINABALU: Sabah forestry authorities have confirmed that a carbon trading deal has been agreed between the state government and a private Singaporean firm but deny that it will allow exploitation of protected forests in the state.
Chief conservator of forests Frederick Kugan, however, said the state had agreed to a provisional framework with Hoch Standard Pte Ltd for the Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA).
He said the NCA’s main objectives are the conservation and protection of tropical rainforests through the monetisation of carbon stored in standing trees, in addition to natural capital benefits in the forest environment.
The focus of the NCA will be on forests classified previously as Totally Protected Areas (TPAs), he added.
He said the TPAs are areas already locked in for conservation and protection under various state laws and international treaties.
“As such, these areas are not under any threat from any mining, logging or industrial agriculture, contrary to allegations made in a Nov 9 article by Mongabay,” Kugan said, in a statement here today.
Mongabay is a website on environmental protection.
The online portal had reported that Sabah leaders recently signed a profit-sharing deal to market carbon and other natural capital from more than two million hectares of the state’s forests in the next 100 years.
The report also claimed that the communities living in and around those jungles are unaware of the deal.
Kugan, in his statement, said the NCA had yet to be finalised as there were a number of outstanding issues such as the designated area and the size and locality.
He said that an initial area of 600,000ha was to be identified as a pilot scheme first.
“Only upon the success of that pilot scheme will the state government consider approving further areas, up to a potential of two million hectares,” he said.
On native customary rights, Kugan said existing native customary rights of ownership had previously been attached to certain TPAs.
“As these rights belong to the native communities and not the state, consent from each respective community is required before these rights are ‘signed away’ through the NCA,” he said.
Besides that, he said there are safeguards to ensure the revenue gained from natural capital benefits are maximally leveraged for the long-term benefit of Sabahans.
“The NCA will be put under the purview of the Sabah Climate Change Committee (CAC), a unit to be set up in the near future as announced by the chief minister recently, to oversee all climate change related projects,” he said.
Kugan said the state government has always been a frontrunner in cutting edge solutions for conservation of its forests and natural resources.
The state envisions great benefits from being a frontrunner as the world is rushing towards a low carbon future but there are always elements of risk, he said, adding that the state would do its utmost to mitigate the risks.
Earlier, a group of civil society organisations (CSOs) working in environmental and social fields voiced their concerns over transparency and due process over the carbon trading project.
“Any such agreements involving major public assets of state heritage, which the government holds in trust, must not be entered into without the prior knowledge of its society and stakeholders.
“Decisions today will impact many generations,” the group said, in a statement.
They added agreements of this scale cannot be done without technical review of the terms and a transparent process.
“In fact, Sabah has the inhouse capacity to manage and market its own carbon to the world without the need to share profits with external brokers,” they said.
The joint statement was issued by the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, Borneo Rhino Alliance, Danau Girang Field Centre, Future Alam Borneo, Land Empowerment Animals People, PACOS Trust, Sabah Environmental Trust, Seratu Aatai, South East Asia Rainforest Research Partnership and WWF Malaysia. - FMT
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