Lau delivering his paper on ‘Plantation: Friend or Foe, from Sarawak Perspective’.
KUCHING: The government, timber industry and NGOs should work together instead of against each other since they share a common concern of maintaining the wellbeing of the environment.
Secretary of Sarawak Timber Association, Dato Henry Lau, said NGOs had been perceived to be fighting for environmental wellbeing and human rights while the timber industry and government had been given the guilty verdict by the public for damaging the environment, being corrupt and violating human rights without the due process of the law.
“NGOs and industry have become enemies circumstantially,” said Lau, who is also BLD Plantation Bhd executive chairman.
Lau challenged such a generalised perception through his paper called ‘Plantation: Friend or Foe, from Sarawak Perspective’ at the 15th International Peat Congress which is being held here from Aug 15-19.
To argue his case, he started first with the forest policy of the state government whereby seven million ha had been allocated to forestry.
From the figure, six million ha would be kept as permanent forest estate (PFE) and out of the six million ha, five million ha had been used as production forest under timber licensing and the remaining one million ha used for planted forest. On top of the six million ha, one million ha had been targeted as totally protected area.
Lau said the timber industry had been one of the biggest revenue contributors to the state. Last year, it generated a cumulative export revenue of RM6.5 billion from timber and timber products and state revenue amounting to RM566 million.
“It is safe to say, though there is no available data, that timber activities have a huge impact on the eradication of poverty in Sarawak.”
According to Lau, from humble beginnings, the industry had advanced significantly over the last 50 years. Among some of its achievements was the building of infrastructure such as roads and bridges; provision of hundreds of thousands of jobs, creating inland accessibility, and improving the welfare of affected people.
Palm oil industry contributed RM63 billion in export revenue in 2015 — Lau
From the timber industry, he moved on to agriculture which he termed as ‘the last frontier of Sarawak’.
He said oil palm plantations only took up 0.3 per cent of the world’s agricultural land and yet was producing 30 per cent of global edible oils. The oil palm industry is also instrumental in producing fossil fuel alternatives and capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
According to Lau, the Malaysian palm oil industry employed more than half a million people and offered stable income for its smallholders. The industry also contributed RM63 billion in export revenue in 2015 from a total planted area of 5.6 million ha.
“This is impressive. It means over RM1,000 per ha or over RM2,200 per capita.”
Sarawak started late in the oil palm industry. It was with great effort and difficulties that the state government managed to set up its oil palm industry after persuading timber companies to venture into commercial planting of oil palm.
It’s the state government’s target to plant three million ha of oil palm plantations, with two million ha to be planted in estate and one million ha on native customary rights (NCR) land.
Currently, Sarawak has 1.4 million ha of oil palm estate with one million ha involving the private sector. Lau said an investment of RM21 billion was based on the RM15,000 per ha.
Compared to the national figure of 5.6 million ha and its land size, Lau said Sarawak’s oil palm industry of 1.4 million ha was still far behind given its huge land size.
As for NCR land, Lau said it had been established through shifting cultivation by using slash-and-burn but was economically unattractive to the industry. One of the reasons was the slow progress caused by disputes, lack of understanding, extensive claims of NCR land, road blocks and intervention by NGOs.
He said out of 1.6 million ha of NCR land, only 235,000 ha had been developed into commercial plantations while the rest was unproductive.
Lau went on to list the many economic benefits brought about by the oil palm industry, which included good revenue (RM18 billion if there are two million ha), job-creation and a big contributor to the state economic wellbeing.
Back to the NGOs, seen by the public as white knights in environmental protection, Lau said though these NGOs had been pointing at forest clearing as the main cause of environmental damage, their arguments were ‘often without facts and due process’.
He said their mission of environment protection should be supported by facts. There must also be transparency in their management and fair assessment on issues, not generalisation and discrimination.
“This kind of thing will make us enemies instead of friends. We should be sitting together to work out ways to move forward so that we can have economic development as well as protection of the environment.”
Citing the two cases of BLD Plantation Bhd vs Friends of the Orang Utan and Matek Geram’s claim of being threatened by BLD Plantation Bhd, he said these were cases that made industry players and NGOs hesitant and apprehensive about each other.
“I think that is wrong. I would like to propose in this very rare occasion where everyone comes together, that we should sit down and work together rather than generalise and start pointing figures and accuse each other.”
He praised environmentalists who advocated saving the forests but said that was too general a statement.
“To put things into practice, we need to look into individual cases before we can come to a certain conclusion whether the case is good or otherwise.”
He concluded that the industry and NGOs should not be treating each other as enemies but rather, respect each other and work together to find solutions since they both share the same concern of upholding environmental wellbeing.
“We should be treating ourselves as friends. ‘Friends’ means not going to the public to tell all the bad things about the other. We should sit together and discuss the problem and solve it together.”
“Think about it. We all breathe, live and breed on this Earth where a good and sensible environment is critical to our wellbeing. We all should respect the environment but we must also recognise the importance of science, progress and development including those who live in the jungles.”
“The three entities should be inclusive of each other. The government has to be respected for its role, the industry to hold its role to progress and the NGOs in their roles to fight for the environment. Without inclusiveness, we cannot be friends working together. Instead, we will become enemies of each other, each trying to work against each other, no matter what.”
“Let’s face it, we all want friends rather than enemies and not the other way round. If environmental wellbeing is our main concern, then we should work together and not against each other.”