KUALA LUMPUR – Malaysia’s commitment to maintaining 50% of its “forest cover” is meaningless because of the definitions it employs, which include monoculture plantations, said rainforest watchdog RimbaWatch.
The government’s definition of deforestation also does not cover clear felling and conversion of natural forests to monoculture plantations as long as the land is legally zoned as forest, making Malaysia’s contribution to climate change even worse.
“RimbaWatch considers Malaysia’s commitment to maintain 50% forest cover meaningless, on the basis that it refers only to a forest cover on paper and is not rooted in physical natural forest cover,” it said in a statement today.
Although the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) basic definition of forest cover includes monoculture plantations as forest, RimbaWatch said Malaysia should go a step further and follow the FAO definition of “naturally regenerating forests”, or adopt other international benchmarks referring only to natural forests, and use these definitions in its commitment to maintaining 50% forest cover.
RimbaWatch was responding to reactions by the forestry departments of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak to its recent study “State of the Malaysian Rainforest 2023”, which sounded the alarm that some 2.3 million hectares of natural forest have been earmarked for clearing. This would reduce Malaysia’s forest cover to 47.3%.
The departments failed to address the study’s key findings and did not analyse any of 437 alerts the study identified, RimbaWatch said.
It also noted that the three forestry departments failed to respond to the study’s findings that they had allowed land they managed to be turned into timber plantations.
“Timber plantations in land managed by those departments will be the biggest driver of deforestation in the future,” RimbaWatch said.
It added that monoculture plantation “forests” should not be included in the country’s definition of forest cover, as they are not as effective as carbon sinks compared with natural forests.
“Natural forests, as a carbon sink, can sequester up to 4.37 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year. Conversely, timber plantations only sequester up to 2.44 tonnes of carbon per hectare per year, and even so this is not permanent as timber plantations will eventually be cut down.
“Therefore, by continuing the destruction of natural forests and conversion of such lands to timber plantations, Malaysia is actively degrading and reducing natural carbon sinks, thereby reneging on our international climate commitments.”
It also took issue with other aspects of Malaysia’s forestry policy, which shifted commitment from 50% “forest cover” to 50% “forest and tree cover”.
“This shift would allow for palm oil plantations to be included under this commitment, which further dilutes it,” the watchdog said.
Malaysia’s commitment to conserve and enhance natural carbon sinks, including forests, is stated under the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the group added. – The Vibes, March 26, 2023
