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The
Star 16 Jul 06
Biodiversity gift to the world may be plundered
Exclusive by SYED AZHAR and RUBEN SARIO KUALA
Yahoo
News 16 Jul
06
Malaysian state to log orangutan habitats
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah, home to endangered
orangutans and other species, will see fresh logging in forest reserves
that will imperil countless plants and animals, a report and conservationists
said.
The chief minister of Sabah, Musa Aman, in March said large-scale logging
would cease by the end of 2007 in the Malua and Ulu Segama forest reserves,
earning plaudits from conservationists including WWF-Malaysia.
But the Star daily, quoting unnamed Sabah officials, said the state-owned
Yayasan Sabah group, which has palmoil plantation and forestry interests,
had contracted companies for new logging operations to start in a month
or two.
"Any logging activity is bound to impact the flora and fauna," an official
was quoted as saying. A spokesperson for the Sabah chief minister would
not comment on the report.
The forests cover a total area of 236,825 hectares (584,957 acres), three
times the size of Singapore, and the logging will affect wildlife including
sun bears, gibbons and wild buffalo, said the newspaper.
It said a 2003 state report had included Malua and Ulu Segama in a list
of forest reserves seen as the last strongholds for about 5,000 orangutans
in Borneo island where Sabah is located.
WWF-Malaysia has said the forests are one of two places in the world where
endangered orangutans, Bornean Pygmy elephants and the critically endangered
Sumatran rhino co-exist.
The organisation said Sunday it shared the concerns in the report about
the endangered plants and wildlife in the forest reserves.
The Sabah government's March announcement "was intended to secure the habitats
for orangutan, elephant, rhinoceros and banteng (a type of ox) in these
forests," said the chief technical officer for WWF-Malaysia's Borneo program,
Rahimatsah Amat. "If logging activities in these two forest reserves are
to be conducted without proper planning and are unsustainable, the biodiversity
and ecosystem contained would be under threat," he warned in a statement.
Rahimatsah called on companies with logging approvals to strictly follow
conditions imposed by government agencies to ensure sustainable practices.
The
Star 16 Jul 06
Biodiversity gift to the world may be plundered
Exclusive by SYED AZHAR and RUBEN SARIO KUALA
LUMPUR: Two Sabah forest reserves, to be bequeathed as Malaysia’s biodiversity
gift to the world by the end of 2007, are set to be logged in a month or
two – endangering countless species of plants and wildlife.
A race against time is underway to log the Malua and Ulu Segama forest reserves,
covering a total of 236,825ha, which is three times the size of Singapore,
before the deadline.
The state-owned Yayasan Sabah holds logging rights in the forest reserves
and recently appointed at least three companies to log in the area.
Environmentalists and state officials fear that logging operations – expected
to begin in a month or two – will have an impact on the wildlife there,
especially sun bears, gibbons, tambadau or wild buffalo, Borneo pygmy elephants,
Sumatran rhinos and orang utans.
When Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman announced on March 15 that logging would
cease in the forest reserves by the end of 2007, local and foreign non-governmental
organisations hailed the move as the most important action ever taken to
secure the future of Borneo’s endangered wildlife.
However, before that, the state government faced pressure to convert the
two areas into oil palm plantations similar to what had been done for Benta
Wawasan in neighbouring Kalabakan, another Yayasan Sabah concession.
Environmental groups are now aghast when they heard that Yayasan Sabah was
proceeding with logging at Malua in Kinabatangan district and Ulu Segama
in Lahad Datu district.
According to them, demarcation of the boundaries meant for the logging contractors
had been concluded.
One official said: “There is no time for Yayasan Sabah to adopt the Reduced
Impact Logging (RIL) methods in Malua and Ulu Segama. “To carry out the
RIL methods, a detailed inventory of the area and a forest management plan
of both reserves, among others, must be carried out,” said the official,
who felt that conventional logging methods were for logs to be extracted
fast within the deadline.
Environmentalists noted that about half of Malua was logged as recently
as four years ago. The other half of the forest reserve had been left untouched
for more than 10 years, resulting in a dense canopy of trees, with clear
water in the rivers. “Any logging activity is bound to impact the flora
and fauna,” said another official.
It is uncertain if the Sabah Government would impose a condition requiring
only trees with a diameter of 60cm and above to be extracted, to enable
the forest to regenerate at a faster pace, he said.
The officials said one contractor was appointed to log in Ulu Segama and
two others in Malua, although it was smaller in size, as the areas earmarked
for logging at the latter area were dense.
The environmentalists felt that sun bears and gibbons would be the most
threatened due to their restrictive diets and the destruction of their food
source by logging. Considered to be the more hardy creatures, the orang
utans would have a better chance of survival in logged forests if the activity
was not done too rapidly, they said.
A 2003 state government report stated that Malua and Ulu Segama with the
forest reserves of Kuamut, Gunung Rara, Kalabakan and Danum Valley managed
by Yayasan Sabah were the last strongholds for about 5,000 orang utans in
Borneo. Malua has the highest number of orang utans within the Yayasan Sabah
forest concessions, having more than 800 primates while Ulu Segama is home
to about 3,000 orang utans.
Both Malua and Ulu Segama reserves encircle the Danum Valley conservation
area that together with Kinabalu Park and the Maliu Basin, will eventually
become part of a one million hectare conservation zone in Sabah.
The zone was also seen by environmentalists as being in line with their
efforts in setting up a 220,000sq km Heart of Borneo conservation area twice
the size of Germany, involving Sabah, Sarawak, Kalimantan and Brunei.
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