The Star, Malaysia : Sarawak reforests 23,000ha

Friday, June 28, 2002

Sarawak reforests 23,000ha

By JACK WONG

KUCHING: Sarawak has reforested more than 23,100ha of shifting cultivation areas inside the permanent forest estates (PFEs).

The rehabilitation programme carried out since 1979 is to revert the deforested areas back to productive forest, said state Forest Department assistant director Joseph Jawa Kendawang.

He said the state government’s target was to establish 1.5 million hectares of planted forests within the next 20 years.

“Planted forests can provide an alternative source of raw materials for timber industries and to relieve the pressure from natural forests.

“They will continue to play an important role in ensuring that sustainable forest management policies are achieved,’’ he added in a paper presented at a seminar organised by The Incorporated Society of Planters (ISP) here recently.

More than 500 participants from throughout the country and Indonesia attended the event.

Jawa said forest plantation offered a competitive internal rate of return of between 12% and 15% as compared to 15.8% for oil palm.

He said there was a need for oil palm plantations in the country (covering 3.5 million hectares) to diversify into forest plantations and introduce agro-forestry projects in view of the high financial risks involved in the planting of a single crop due to the fluctuation of export prices of the primary commodities in international markets.

Agro-forestry involves the integrated planting of crops with tree species, and the raising of livestock on the same piece of land aimed to maximise land use.

He said the state had carried out a pilot agro-forestry programme in the Sabal Forest Reserves 15 years ago to reduce shifting cultivation in PFEs and improve the income of rural people.

Under the programme, eight projects have been implemented. These include cattle rearing, raising of goats, deer and wild boars, fish rearing, inter-cropping of cocoa and coffee, planting of rubber, multilayer cropping of pineappes with tree crops, like mushroom cultivation.

Jawa said managers should consider implementing integrated planting of agricultural crops with tree crop and the rearing of livestock in plantations to maximise land use.