The government of Terengganu, a state in peninsular Malaysia, will clear forests along its border to establish oil palm plantations, reports Malaysian state media.
Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Said, chief minister of the state, said converting the forest area to plantations would help stymie illegal logging in the area bordering the states of Pahang and Kelantan. It wasn’t immediately clear how much forest would be converted, but Bernama quoted Said as saying, “We found that of the 500 acres of logging areas awarded, some 200 acres had been illegally logged.”
He also said the state government would “gazette 30,000 hectares of logging areas as forest reserve to prevent development,” according to Bernama.
Related articles
Malaysia’s rainforests being insidiously replaced with plantations of clones July 20, 2009
Malaysia is systematically replacing its natural forests with plantations of GMO latex-timber clones without affecting official “forest” cover. Rainforests once managed for selective logging in Malaysia are now being are clear-felled and replaced with latex-timber clones—rubber trees that yield latex and can be harvested for timber—reports the Malaysian Star. Up to 80 percent of Malaysia’s remaining forest cover could be at risk.