By Alang Bendahara
SHAH ALAM, July 8 — The Selangor government will keep working to safeguard the state’s forest reserves as part of its aim for environmental conservation and preservation.
State executive councillor for environment Hee Loy Sian noted that the state still has many forests that have not yet been gazetted as a forest reserve.
“Our current efforts focus not only on preserving the existing forest reserves, but also on expanding it by gazetting the mangrove forests.
“This is part of the state administration effort to prevent any further logging activities,” said Hee at the sustainability forum session that was held at the First Selangor Plan (RS-1) Pre-Launch Symposium at the Shah Alam City Council (MBSA) Convention Centre, here yesterday.
Other panellists during the forum were state executive councillor for local government and public transportation Ng Sze Han, state executive councillor for housing and urban wellbeing Rodziah Ismail, Worldwide Holdings Bhd chief executive officer Datin Norazlina Zakaria and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Environmental and Development (Sustainability) Institute lecturer Profesor Joy Jacqueline Pereira.
He said to date, the current size of forest reserves in Selangor stands at 32.5 per cent and the goal is to raise the number to 35 per cent.
Hee said that before any forest reserve could be degazetted for development, the state would ensure that all due processes had to be followed.
“To do so, the process needs to go through a public inquiry. Also, the degazetted forest reserves need to be replaced with an area of equivalent, more or equal in value,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hee said Selangor had lost RM77 million in its effort to preserve the environment when the state administration imposed a 25-year moratorium on logging from 2010 until 2035.
“In the first case, we had to pay RM51 million to the logging company because they took it to court and the state lost. Then a second company met us as they do not want to take it to court but had asked for RM35 million. We negotiated but still ended up paying RM26 million.
“Now the third, fourth and fifth companies are waiting for their turn. This is the result of the logging moratorium. When we follow the rules, we have to pay a high price,” he said.
In 2010, the Selangor state government had banned logging in forest reserves for 25 years. This mostly affected wood concessionaires who had been granted logging rights prior to Pakatan Harapan (PH) winning the state in 2008.
