Awang Tengah (standing front, fourth right) joins Mussen, Naroden (sixth and fifth right, respectively), Kadim (third right), Hamden (right) and others in a photo-call after the planting of Shorea macrophylla – a tree species locally known as ‘engkabang’.
KOTA SAMARAHAN: The industrial tree plantation that provides raw materials for the timber sector now covers more than 400,000 hectares (ha) of land in Sarawak.
According to Deputy Chief Minister III Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, this endeavour involves the Sarawak government together with a number of private companies, as a way to put lesser pressure on Sarawak’s natural forests.
This is in line with Sarawak government’s commitment in ensuring that the forest resources are being sustainably managed to meet the demands of the present and future generations.
“We plan to have not less than six million hectares of our land to be designated as permanent forests, and these include industrial tree plantation. Why we are going aggressively into industrial tree plantation? It is to ensure the sustainability of our forestry sector and to support the timber industry.
“We want to go more towards downstream activities, more value-added activities for our timber products,” he said when declaring open the ‘Takasago-Unimas Educational Forest: Tree Planting Programme’ at Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) Samarahan Campus here yesterday.
Awang Tengah, who is also Second Minister of Urban Development and Natural Resources, said Sarawak has set a target to establish one million hectares of Totally Protected Areas (TPAs), which also cover national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and nature reserves, by 2020.
He disclosed that to date, the government has gazetted more than 800,000 hectares of land as TPAs, adding that the Sarawak government’s commitment in this cause is further shown by its participation in the Heart of Borneo (HoB) Agreement, signed in 2007.
According to Awang Tengah, 2.7 million hectares have been designated as the Sarawak’s area for HoB – an initiative that aims to conserve the biodiversity of forests through a network of protected areas, sustainable management of forest and land use.
Meanwhile, the tree planting event yesterday commemorated the establishment of the Takasago-Unimas Educational Forest involving 10 hectares of area around the campus.
The ‘Educational Forest’, established in Unimas for research and training purposes, is financially supported by Takasago Thermal Engineering Co Ltd – one of Japan’s major companies.
This programme also receives support from Japan-Malaysia Association, which has actively been conducting various reforestation programmes with Sarawak Forest Department since 1995.
From the project, it is expected that around 25,000 treelings would be planted within the whole area by 2022.
According to Awang Tengah again, a total 433,000 trees have been planted across an area covering 1,073.36 hectares under the Malaysian-Japanese Friendship Forests programme, which includes those in Kubah National Park, Sampadi Forest Reserve, Balai Ringin Protected Forest, Gunung Apeng Forest Reserve and Sabal Forest Reserve.
Assistant ministers Datuk Naroden Majais and Malcolm Mussen Lamoh, Minister of Embassy at Embassy of Japan in Malaysia Hiroyuki Orikasa, Sarawak Forest Department director Hamden Mohammad, Unimas vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohamad Kadim Suaidi, Takasago Thermal Engineering Co Ltd chief executive Jun Tabuchi, and Japan-Malaysia Association president Takakazu Ogawa were also present at the event.