Peka Malaysia has asked whether Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and Yang di-Pertuan Agong Sultan Abdullah Sultan Ahmad Shah will address the issue of forest plantations in Pahang.
The environmental organisation's vice-president, Damien Thanam, also dismissed the notion that developers were exploiting a "loophole" to carry out large-scale plantation projects.
"Loophole? We believe this regulation was put in place for exactly that reason, to make it easier to log and destroy our forests.
"It is not a weakness discovered by mistake within the system," Thanam told Malaysiakini in a statement.
Closing the "loophole" and resolving the issue, he said, would require political will and for decision-makers to be sincere.
"Will the prime minister, as an MP from Pahang, comment on this matter? Will His Majesty (who is the Sultan of Pahang) decree an investigation?" he asked.
Thanam was responding to a Malaysiakini article on developers dividing a major project into several pieces in order to avoid publicising their Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports.
To verify this, Malaysiakini had looked into medium-sized forest plantation projects which covered 100 to 500 hectares.
It was discovered that among the projects approved by the Department of Environment (DOE) last year, forest plantations topped the list with 18, all of which were medium-sized projects.
Of the 18, seven projects were related to Fajarbaru Builder Group Berhad. Subsidiaries and affiliates of this firm are linked to MCA leaders and their family members.
Fajarbaru's executive chairperson is former MCA deputy president Chan Kong Choy, who prior to his retirement from politics, held several government posts, including that of transport minister.
Severe ecological harm
Meanwhile, Thanam said to put an end to this, state Forestry Departments nationwide should immediately set requirements for all forest projects, regardless of size, to see a complete EIA and make it compulsory for public hearings on objections to these projects as a major part of this study before approvals are granted.
He called for a detailed report from the Wildlife Department on studies at these locations to be made public and added into the EIA as well.
"Can this be done? Yes, it can, but it requires sincerity from those in decision-making seats. We beg to be proven wrong as we say this will not happen as this political will is not in the best interest of those voted in," Thanam added.
Environmental groups have highlighted the adverse impact of the plantations as they involved large swathes of forest land while the "clear-cutting" strategy results in severe ecological harm.
Unlike selective logging, where only wood that is valued is chosen, clear-cutting sees the felling of all trees.
Macaranga, an environmental media site, estimated that between 2007 and 2019, Pahang cleared 75,748 hectares of forest for plantations, second only to Kelantan. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.