The Star, Malaysia : Dept tracking down illegal logging ring

Friday, June 21, 2002

Dept tracking down illegal logging ring

By RUBEN SARIO

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Forestry Department is in the process of tracking down several individuals linked to an illegal logging operation at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve.

A state official said the department had been investigating the illegal logging, which was reported to the authorities six weeks ago.

“The report and the department’s investigations have, however, been kept low-key in view of the efforts being made to track down the suspects,” the official said on Tuesday.

Tabin, a Class Seven forest reserve, comes under the jurisdiction of both the Forestry and Wildlife Departments.

On Monday, Singapore Zoological Gardens curator Tan Kit Sun, who was among 30 researchers conducting studies on Sumatran rhinos in the area, highlighted the illegal logging activities at the wildlife reserve.

He said the research group had spotted felled trees, tractors and other heavy machinery in the area in the course of their work.

The researchers, he added, had also seen tracks made by heavy machinery near the central part of the 120,000ha wildlife reserve.

Noting that the wildlife reserve was surrounded by oil palm plantations, he said there were many approaches for loggers wishing to enter the area.

On their research project, jointly carried out by SOS Rhino, the Singapore Zoo and the state Wildlife Department, Tan said the work was to determine the actual number of Sumatran rhinos in the state.

He said it was estimated that there were 50 such animals at Taman Negara in the peninsula, about 80 in Sumatra and some 30 in Sabah.

The Sumatran rhino, he noted, was a critically endangered species that could end up extinct in the next decade.

“There will be no more rhinos left on this planet if they keep losing their natural habitat,” he added.

Officials of the Forestry Department could not be reached for comment.

However, according to Datuk Wilfred Lingham, managing director of Tabin Sdn Bhd, the concessionaire company developing tourism facilities at Tabin, the department had already carried out an aerial survey of the area as part of its probe into the illegal logging at the wildlife reserve, which is twice the size of Singapore.