Chief conservator clarifies on logging at Trus Madi

KOTA KINABALU: Chief Conservator of Forests Datuk Sam Mannan yesterday clarified that logging activities by Priceworth International Bhd’s wholly owned subsidiary Sinora Sdn Bhd at Trus Madi forest reserve area would not be carried out in a Class I Total Protected Area (TPA).

He explained that Trus Madi, spanning about 170,000-odd hectares, was gazetted as a Class II commercial forest reserve for logging purposes in the 1970s.

Five to six years ago, the Sabah Forestry Department separated 80,000 hectares from the Trus Madi forest reserve and turned it into Class I TPA, which was subsequently named Nulohon Trus Madi, Mannan said.

Mount Trus Madi sits within the Nulohon Trus Madi forest reserve, he said.

“Nulohon Trus Madi is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and is directly managed by the Sabah Forestry Department.”

Meanwhile, Mannan said the remaining 88,000 hectares maintained its name as Trus Madi forest reserve.

He explained that Trus Madi forest reserve could not be turned into a Class I forest reserve as it was licensed as a Forest Management Unit (FMU) in 1997.

“Because of financial constraint, nothing happened (on the FMU), until somebody came to salvage. This salvaging also includes harvesting (timber).”

Mannan was commenting on the approval given by Sabah Forestry Department recently for Anika Desiran Sdn Bhd (ADSB), which has appointed Sinora as contractor, to start extracting and removing commercial logs and/or merchantable timber from Compartment 57 and Compartment 58 in Trus Madi forest reserve area.

As the former licensee’s old management plan has expired and became invalid, Mannan said the State Government had insisted on a new management plan which would take into consideration the opinion of all stakeholders, including the licensee, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and the Sabah Forestry Department.

He said the management plan was currently being drawn up and was near completion.

“We have decided that this is purely natural forest management (NFM). It does not involve industrial tree plantation.

“If there is going to be any planting, it will be small, involving only indigenous species,” he said.

Mannan stressed that the government would not grant its approval until the management plan is approved and acceptable to all stakeholders.

He said the Sabah Forestry Department had given two coupe permits for forest harvesting based on Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) to the licensee to start with.

He added that the best model for forest management was KTS Plantation Sdn Bhd.

“KTS is NFM. They do logging, they do planting, they engage with communities, they get certified,” he said.

ADSB is a 99.99 per cent owned subsidiary of Rumpun Capaian Sdn Bhd, which was awarded a 100-year concession in September 1997 to carry out harvesting, forest management and rehabilitation, and industrial tree planting within 101,161 hectares in Trus Madi. This licensed area is known as Forest Management Unit 5 (FMU5).

Concurrent with the signing of the log extraction and timber sale agreement with ADSB in October last year, Priceworth’s unit GSR Pte Ltd inked a share sale and purchase agreement (SPA) to buy 100 per cent in Rumpun Capaian for RM260 million.

Priceworth intends to inject Sinora into GSR, which will then seek a listing on the Singapore Stock Exchange.

The SPA between GSR and Rumpun Capaian is conditional on, among others, the issuance of the coupe permits for Compartment 57 and Compartment 58 based on the new forest management plan for the licensed area.