Musa (seventh right), Sam (sixth left), Lau (fourth left), Shahril (third right) and other signatories after the signing ceremony. – Photo by Aniq Azraei.
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Forestry Department (SFC), Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and KTS Plantation Sdn Bhd (KTSP) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to establish cooperation in research, training and academic partnerships for three years on Sustainable Forest Management (SFM).
The SFD-UMS-KTSP collaboration is the first for KTSP with a tertiary institution.
Sabah Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Aman witnessed the signing ceremony between SFD director Datuk Sam Mannan, UMS deputy vice chancellor of research and innovation, Prof Dr Shahril Yusof, and KTS Group of Companies deputy managing director Temenggong Dato Vincent Lau Lee Ming, during the International Conference on Heart of Borneo (HoB).
Themed ‘Enabling and Empowering Conservation through Science-Policy Interface, Conservation Finance and Community Engagement’, the conference is held on Nov 8 and 9 at the Magellan Sutera Resort here.
A Letter of Intent (LoI) was signed at last year’s conference which paved the way for a year of successful negotiation and planning to ensure maximum impact of the smart partnership between the three parties.
The MoU will allow the three parties to develop a comprehensive collaboration in the next three years focusing on management of oriented research, education, functional aspects and resources inventory.
Management of oriented research includes research and development standard, techniques and scientific technologies conforming to the concepts on sustainable forest management as advocated by SFD and adopted by KTS.
Collaboration in education aspects involve all expertise, experiences and infrastructures which can be utilised for mutual advancement, whereas functional aspects include training and research on forest ecosystem dynamics and relationships, the effect of the dimension of human and other basic ecosystem, species and population studies.
Meanwhile, resource inventory entails research and training on forest vegetation, biodiversity, nature parks and tourism, medicinal plant research and commercialisation in Sabah.
The successful implementation, achievement and significant tangible benefits in managing its forest area based on the principle of SFM for the past 18 years has motivated KTSP to venture into smart partnerships with reputed partners to enhance its management performance.
The collaboration marks a huge step towards an innovative approach in managing forest areas in line with KTSP’s goal to achieve excellence in SFM, as the partnership will see the incorporation of collective expertise from SFD and UMS in areas of research, forest sciences and forest operation management.
Through SFD’s success and extensive practical experience in managing various forest management units in Sabah based on the SFM principle and also UMS’ various scientific research findings in forest sciences, KTSP, as a partner representing the forest industry, will be able to acquire the latest knowledge and skills for managing its forest area sustainably.
As a pioneer in the implementation of SFM in Sabah, KTSP will, in turn, offer UMS its unique forest ecosystem for research programmes and accommodate students to undertake practical, field work or industrial training.
Collaboration in specific research project of wildlife sciences will also provide KTSP with a better understanding of the impact of its forest operations on wildlife and thereafter develop a management plan for enhancing wildlife management.
KTSP is the first private company in Malaysia certified with both MC&I (Natural Forest) for Forest Management and MS ISO 14001 for Environmental Management System. To ensure continuous excellence in managing its forest area, KTSP is using these two standards to measure the management performance of the three main pillars of SFM, namely, economic, environment and social. The two benchmarks will also be used to promote ongoing innovations and improvements on management practices.
The unique tripartite collaboration initiative which represents the industry, education and regulatory bodies aims to tap into the synergistic effect that promotes good forest governance through the application of knowledge-based management guided by sound scientific research and proven operational practices.
It will also give specific focus on the development of forestry graduate to become a competent forest management who will thereafter benefit the forestry sector as a whole in pushing the agenda for good forest governance in Sabah.
The MoU is another step forward for KTSP in its endeavour to develop links with educational institutions for collaborations that can result in synergy and mutual benefits.
The event also saw the signing ceremony of MoU, Memorandum of Intent (MoI) and agreements on other collaborations, which involved the Department of Agriculture, Sabah Foundation, Academy of Sciences Malaysia, Permian Board of Trustees, Forestry Division of Sabah Foundation, Kopel Berhad, WWF-Malaysia, Sabah Wildlife Department, Felda Global Venture Holdings Berhad and The Nature Conservancy.