PETALING JAYA (Aug 26, 2012): The Sabah Forestry Department has decided to re-gazette 183,000ha of Class 2 commercial forests into Class 1 protection forests.
This involves mainly forest ecosystems in Ulu Segama and Gunung Rara Forest Reserves.
The areas of Danum Valley on its eastern borders, Ulu Segama Forest Reserve, and Northern Gunung Rara will be safeguarded by totally protected forests.
Class 2 commercial forests are forests allocated for logging and timber supplies, while Class 1 protection forests are forests conserved for protection and maintenance for essential climate stability, and cannot be logged.
"Class 1 protection forests forbids any form of conversion under the Forest Enactment 1968 (Sabah). This ensures a safe habitat for the wildlife in the area such as the Bornean clouded leopards, orang utans, Sumatran rhinoceros and pygmy elephants," said executive director/CEO of WWF-Malaysia Datuk Dionysius Sharma in a statement.
The department's decision will increase total protected areas in Sabah to approximately 1.3 million ha, which is 10% above the standards imposed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
"WWF-Malaysia congratulates the Sabah Forestry Department on its latest success. We hope for continuous teamwork to ensure constant success stories like this," he said.
Several Sabah-based non-governmental organisations have expressed support for the move made by the department, Bernama reports.
"This re-gazette will serve to secure habitat for Malaysia's largest orang utan population, as well as for a wide range of biological diversity," said Hutan-Kinabatangan Orang Utan Conservation Programme scientific director Dr Marc Ancrenaz.
"Hutan has been assisting in surveys and monitoring of orang utans in this area for the past few years, so we are especially pleased to see this move by the state government," he added in a joint statement two days ago.
Founder of LEAP (Land Empowerment Animals People) Cynthia Ong said in the same statement Sabah was emerging as a leader in pushing the boundaries in management of natural ecosystem services, and for treating forests as stores of water, carbon and biodiversity rather than just as timber sources.
"We still have major problems and issues to address, but this is the sort of change that we want to see."
Borneo Rhino Alliance executive director Datuk Dr Junaidi Payne also said the main merit of this plan was to make it more difficult for any government to convert the lowland parts of these forest reserves to oil palm plantations in the future.
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