The logs confiscated from the site at Sungai Sugai, Pakan.
SARIKEI: The raid by the enforcement team from Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) on a site at Sungai Sugai, Pakan, near here, yesterday marked the first illegal logging case of this ‘Year of the Monkey’.
The team manning the One-Stop Compliance Centre (OSCC) in Engkamop acted on a tip-off and managed to seize 31 pieces of logs, comprising 29 ‘Menggris’ logs and two ‘Tapang’ logs, from the site.
“The logs were readily identified as having been illegally felled because of the absence of property and royalty markings (on them), as well as the location of the site not being in or anywhere near any area licensed for logging operations.
“On top that, Menggris and Tapang trees are both protected species under the Wild Life Protection Ordinance 1998; thus making this logging case a ‘double offence’,” SFC said yesterday.
“However, no perpetrator or machinery was found at the crime scene. Overgrown grasses and vines surrounding the logs also point to the possibility that these logs might have been felled and abandoned at the site for quite some time,” the corporation added.
A police report was later lodged at Sarikei station. The case would be handed over to the Forest Department for further investigation and disposal.