'Govt's forestry practice goes against international promises'

 

The government’s forestry practices are against the country’s international climate promises, said environmental group RimbaWatch.

The group said this in response to statements from the Peninsula Malaysia Forestry Department (JPSM), Sabah and Sarawak's Forestry Departments that denied findings from its "State of the Malaysian Rainforest 2023" study.

Expressing disappointment over the matter, RimbaWatch said the three departments' blanket denial neither accurately addressed any of its key findings, nor did it analyse any of the 437 identified alerts.

"For the record, we made it clear in our study that we were referring to the loss of 2.3 million hectares of natural forest, and this loss of natural forest was not addressed by any of the forestry departments.

“Nor did they make any specific reference to our findings that timber plantations in land managed by those departments will be the biggest driver of deforestation in the future," said the group in a statement.

"We are extremely concerned that Malaysia’s forestry authorities have clarified that they do not count the clear-felling and conversion of natural forest to monoculture plantations as deforestation, as long as the land is legally zoned as forest.

"We are also appalled and saddened that monoculture plantations are included under forest cover, as long as the land is legally zoned as forest," added RimbaWatch.

Yesterday, the Peninsular Malaysia Forestry Department (JPSM) pointed out that RimbaWatch's understanding of forest plantation is different from the definition used by the department or government.

It said the differences and contradictions were found to have caused the prediction made by RimbaWatch about the extent of forest loss in Malaysia to be too large, reaching 2.3 million hectares.

On that note, RimbaWatch acknowledged that Malaysia adopts the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)s basic definition of forest cover, which does include monoculture plantations as forests.

However, the group said there is an expectation for Malaysia to adopt other definitions that only referred to natural forest cover, as the government's commitments to maintain 50 percent forest cover have been stated in various forums when addressing biodiversity loss and climate change.

"RimbaWatch considers Malaysia’s commitment to maintaining 50 percent forest cover to be meaningless on the basis that it refers only to a forest cover that is on paper and is not rooted in physical natural forest cover.

"It is inappropriate to include monoculture plantations as part of this 50 percent forest cover commitment, and to exclude the conversion of natural forests to non-natural monoculture plantations from being referred to as deforestation, just because the land is zoned as a forest on paper," it said.

Further, the group cited a further weakening in Malaysia's forestry policy with a move to allow for oil palm plantations to be included as part of its 50 percent commitment.

RimbaWatch, in its report, analysed five categories of areas at risk of deforestation, which include non-forest zoning of forested land, real estate listings of forested land, forest reserve de-gazettement, approved forest-risk environmental impact assessments, and miscellaneous data.

Based on their estimation, RimbaWatch warned that such deforestation could reduce Malaysia's forest cover to 15.6 million hectares, which is 47.35 percent of the country's total land area.

This is based on the government's data in 2017, which stated Malaysia's forest cover to be 18.33 million hectares, or 55.2 percent of the country's total land area. - Mkini