Freshly felled and cut hardwood logs stacked on a trailer during transport in Malaysia
During the 1980's rampant logging in the Borneo states of Sabah and Sarawak allowed Malaysia to temporarily outpace Indonesia and become the world's largest exporter of tropical woods. Looking at the published figures, Malaysia would appear to have one of the best rainforest protection policies in developing Asia but in practice logging still continues. The majority of Malaysia's remaining forests are managed for timber production and each state is empowered to create forest policy independently. During the past two decades when logging was unchecked, the Malaysian forests sustainable forest management has been non existent. While Malaysia has the policy framework for sustainable forest management in the form of the National Forestry Act of 1984 it has been weak and failed to enforce the legislation. Peninsular Malaysia's primary forests are completely decimated with secondary forests covering only a fraction of the former rainforest areas. East Malaysia still has large areas of forest however much of this has been selectively logged leaving low biodiversity. In Sabah, North eastern Borneo, cutting has slowed over the years after a period of rapid deforestation. Sarawak North western Borneo is the current area of forest exploitation with hardwood imports to Japan numbering 19 650 000 cubic meters from 1992 1995 alone Although 8 of the land area is designated as reserves half of Sarawak is slated for logging concessions and the rest of Sarawak has already been deforested for development It is estimated that if logging continue at its current pace the primary forests of Sarawak will be gone in 5 8 years Those areas that have been set aside as reserves are understaffed and threatened by selective logging and encroachment by colonists who settle along logging roads that open up former forest lands Local environmentalists claim that loggers are frantically clearing lands designated to become parks before they become legally protected by the government Most of the lowland
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Photo credit: © Scenics & Science / Alamy / Afripics
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Keywords: cut, de, deforestation, felled, forest, forestation, freshly, hardwood, jungle, logging, logs, malaysia, rain, rainforest, stacked, trailer, transport, tropical
