About 5.9 Million Hectares in Peninsula Are Forest Land
Copyright ©2000 BERNAMA
September 20 , 2000
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 (Bernama) -- As of last year, about 5.9 million hectares, which constitute some 45.1 per cent of the total land area in peninsular Malaysia, are forested land.
According to the Forestry Department's Peninsular Malaysia 1999 Annual Report released here, despite the rapid growth of industrialisation in peninsular Malaysia, sustained efforts had maintained the Permanent Reserved Forest (PRF) at 4.8 million hectares annually for the period 1991 to last year.
The forested land, mainly dipterocarp forest, peat swamp forest, mangrove forest and forest plantation, are reserved under legislation to be managed sustainably for protection, production, amenity, research and education purposes.
The report says that 46,145 hectares of the proposed PRF in peninsular Malaysia have been gazetted, while 233,546 hectares approved earlier have still not been constituted. The entire gazetted PRF is located in Terengganu.
A total of 42,940 hectares of the existing PRF in Selangor was specifically reclassified as protected water catchment forest in October last year, while an area of 1,187 hectares from the existing PRF in Peninsular Malaysia was excised for development.
The forest management in peninsular Malaysia encompasses ecological, social economic, biological and physical considerations which emphasise simultaneous sustainable production of desirable outputs as well as enhancement of the protective functions of the forests and in the conservation of biological diversity, the report says.
The forest outputs include water, non-timber forest such as rattan, bamboo, medicinal plants, resins and dyes.
On forest resource development, the report says the federal and state governments allocated RM75.45 million to the department to implement various programmes mainly for conservation, management and sustainable development of peninsular Malaysia's forest resources.
"For the first time, a sum of RM7.26 million was spent on forest resource development funded from the timber export levy collected," it says.
The logged-over forest needs to be rehabilitated to ensure continuous log supply and to achieve sustainable forest management. Implementation of the rehabilitation activies had resulted in about 1.7 million hectares of logged-over forest in the Peninsula being rehabilitated and 74,435 hectares established as man-made forests.
Of the total forest plantations established, 76 per cent or 56,593 hectares were planted with fast growing Acacia mangium species to ensure a sustainable production of fast-growing hardwood species logs for the domestic market.
The report says that revenue collected from commercial thinning and felling in forest plantations amounted to RM3.5 million last year.
A total of 87 Virgin Jungle Reserves (VJRs) covering 23,002 hectares were gazetted throughout the peninsula to establish permanent nature reserves, as controls for comparing harvested and silviculturally treated logged-over forests and as undisturbed natural forests for general ecological and botanical studies.
The report adds that apart from stabilising the environment, tropical rain forests in peninsular Malaysia are also a valuable source of recreation. To date, 95 forest recreation areas had been developed and managed by various state forestry department.