Mashor
KOTA KINABALU: A total of 37 Forest Management Unit (FMU) licences have been issued by the State Government from 1997 to May 2018, before the 14th General Election.
Of the 37 FMU licences, four have been cancelled, said Sabah Chief Conservator of Forests Datuk Mashor Mohd Jaini.
He said the Sabah Forestry Department had proposed to terminate more FMU licences.
He said the current 33 licence holders have been awarded FMUs covering 1.8 million hectares of Class 2 commercial forest reserve for between 30 and 100 years.
“Seventy-five percent of them meet the minimum standards, though there is still room for improvement,” he told a press conference here yesterday.
Since the GE14, Mashor said the State Government had not issued new FMU licences.
“The last four licences were issued in the first quarter of 2018.”
He said approximately 48 percent of Sabah’s land mass was covered with forest of Class 1 to 7.
In 1997, he said the State Government introduced the FMU concept on Class 2 forest reserves to curb excessive logging by implementing a long-term forest management plan, or a Sustainable Forest Management Licence Agreement (SFMLA), that was centred around economy, social and environment.
He said the issuance of FMU licence was the authority of the Chief Minister and State Cabinet.
During the press conference, he also released the company names and ownership of six FMU licence holders that have been published in the media recently.
As a civil servant, Mashor said he was unfamiliar with the names of the licence holders, nor did he know who they were associated with.
On another note, he said the Sabah Forestry Department was in the process of reviewing other licence holders on their compliance level.
He said the department had to be cautious when terminating FMU licences because the existing agreement did not have an exit clause.
Nevertheless, he said the department was in the process of reviewing the strengthening the SFMLA, which he hoped to be completed by this year or next year.
He said some FMU licence holders were committed to forest management, but some companies have changed their ownership up to four times.
When asked by reporters, Mashor said 324,620 hectares out of the 500,000 hectares earmarked for industrial tree planting (ITP) had been replanted.
He said the State Government had not issued any new FMU licences after May 2018.
In fact, he said Yayasan Sabah had taken over 30,000 hectares out of 53,000 hectares from a licence holder through negotiation.
“Based on current policy, any new FMUs will only be awarded to Yayasan Sabah or joint venture with Yayasan Sabah.”
On whether he thought FMU was a success, Mashor said the FMU was a good concept that needed improvement.
Before FMU was introduced, he said there was no long-term commitment to restore or replant areas that had been logged.
“Under sustainable forest management, harvesting is no longer the core business. Licence holders have to strike a balance between harvesting, restoring and replanting the forest.”
However, he said there were times when one could not guarantee the implementation of the FMU.
He said FMU licences should supposedly be awarded to committed companies with background in forestry, and ideally with strong capital so that the companies would not have to rely on harvesting trees before they could carry out restoration or replantation works.