Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas
KUCHING: The Sarawak government will object to any restriction on the expansion of oil palm plantation on native customary land (NCL).
Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas said this is because land or plantation development on NCL is part of the Sarawak government’s programme to eradicate poverty in the rural areas as well as to improve the rural folks’ economic status.
However, Uggah agrees to the federal government’s effort to keep 50 per cent of the land in Malaysia as forests, saying this has been the policy of the Sarawak government since 1992.
Uggah, who is Bukit Saban assemblyman, also agrees with halting the expansion of land and plantation development on state land, adding the Sarawak government had announced this move previously.
“We have two types of land. One is state land, the other is the native customary land (NCL). We object to any restriction on land and plantation development
on NCL as that would hamper the state’s target of achieving high income economy status by 2030,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.
Uggah was responding to the recent comment by Minister of Primary Industries Teresa Kok that the federal government will not allow any more expansion of oil palm plantations in the country and that the government is also committed to maintaining 50 per cent of the land as forests.
On another matter, Uggah asked Kok why her ministry was only inviting Warisan-led Sabah government to the planned talk on educating rural traders on standard guidelines.
“Are they discriminating against Sarawak GPS (Gabungan Parti Sarawak)?” he asked.
When contacted, Assistant Minister of Urban Development, Land Administration and Environment Datu Len Talif Salleh said Sarawak was not worried about its land administration unlike land administrators in Peninsular Malaysia who now had to deal with deficit in forest areas.
Len Talif pointed out that in the final analysis, more than 60 per cent of the land mass in Sarawak will be forests – which is bigger than the national requirement.
Like Uggah, Len Taliff said Sarawak still has vast areas of NCL which are underutilised such as for land development and should be further developed to eradicate poverty in the rural areas.
He said at the moment, only 1.2 million hectares of NCL or 16 per cent of the land mass are developed but in the final
analysis, up to two million hectares of NCL will be used for plantation.
Around six million hectares will be reserved for permanent forests, national parks and wildlife centres, he added.
Len Talif said he was sad that Kok was ill-informed about land administration in Sarawak.