Huge concessions threaten Malaysia's forests: report May 28, 2024

Palm oil trees in a plantation in the Malaysian state of Selangor (Mohd RASFAN)

By AFP - Agence France Presse

Huge concessions threaten Malaysia's forests: report

Vast concessions in Malaysia's forests threaten millions of hectares of rich natural habitats and jeopardize the country's commitment to 50 percent forest cover, a report warned on Tuesday.

NGO RimbaWatch said its analysis of concessions in the country's forests showed that up to 3.2 million hectares could be cut down, potentially releasing huge carbon emissions and jeopardizing key animal habitats.

“Malaysia has been consistently establishing concessions in forest areas, leaving vast areas at risk,” said RimbaWatch director Adam Farhan.

“Malaysia's rainforest is millions of years old, and when it's lost, it's lost permanently,” he told AFP.

The definition and delineation of natural forest cover is complicated: some assessments categorize abandoned timber plantations or active palm oil plots as forest cover, while others only cover relatively untouched land.

Therefore, RimbaWatch used three different baselines of forest cover for its research: one based on EU satellite data, one using official Malaysian data, and one based on an independent analysis by the conservation start-up, The TreeMap.

RimbaWatch mapped the concessions in these baselines to determine how much forest was at risk, on the assumption that all trees in the concession areas were threatened.

The analysis revealed that 14% to 16% of Malaysia's remaining natural forest is at risk of being cut down, or between 2.1 and 3.2 million hectares.

Malaysia has a long-standing commitment to maintain forest cover on 50% of its territory, but this promise is at risk and may have already been broken, said RimbaWatch.

TreeMap's Nusantara Atlas dataset estimates that forest cover was already below 47% in 2022.

Timber and palm oil plantations are the main risk factors for deforestation in Malaysia, but other threats include mining and even hydroelectric projects.

The report is the second time that RimbaWatch has analyzed the risk to Malaysia's forests. Its findings last year were rejected by the Malaysian authorities, who said the group's definition of forest cover was misleading.

RimbaWatch argues that Malaysia defines forest cover too broadly.

“The Malaysian government allows monoculture plantations to be counted as forest cover, which is an incredibly worrying development,” said Adam.

“The 2.4 million hectares of loss expected for timber plantations will not be reported by the Malaysian government as deforestation,” he added.

Malaysia's Minister of Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, said on Tuesday that the authorities would “verify” the RimbaWatch report before responding, the New Straits Times reported.

“We know there are challenges on some points, but I think we are working hard to protect them and we will look at the report seriously,” he said.

However, Adam warned that Malaysia is pushing ahead with concessions in forest areas and even offering subsidies for timber plantations, where native trees are removed to make way for fast-growing commercial crops such as acacia.

“The Malaysian rainforest has hundreds of tree species per hectare, but monoculture only has one,” said Adam.

sah/sn