Logging licence report erroneous, says S’wak govt
The state government said a daily had misreported the issuance of temporary land-clearing licences as logging licences.
KUCHING: The Sarawak government has clarified a newspaper report that said the state’s forest department has continued to issue logging licences despite a public directive by Chief Minister Adenan Satem that all such licences had been halted.
On Sunday, The Borneo Post reported that the Sarawak forest department continued to issue new logging permits, called the OT (Occupation Ticket) licences and LA (Letter Of Authority) despite an assurance by Chief Minister Adenan Satem at the state assembly in November 2014 that logging licences would no longer be issued to curb corruption and illegal logging.
The newspaper report, entitled “Directive on timber licences flouted?”, said that as of Jan 12, 2016, a total of 102 OT and LA licences had been issued in the state.
The report cited Sarawak Forest director Sapuan Ahmad as providing the figures during a departmental briefing.
Of the 102 OT licences, 31 were held by Pelita Holdings Sdn Bhd, 26 issued under provisional lease (PL), 10 under alienated land, 12 for gazetted NCR land and 23 on land subject to NCR (Native Customary Right) claims, the report said.
Sarawak Resource Planning and Environment Ministry permanent secretary Sudarsono Osman said when the chief minister said no more timber licences would be issued, what he meant was there would be no more new timber concessions.
He made the clarification at a press conference at Wisma Bapa Malaysia here, also attended by Sapuan.
Adenan was to have attended the press conference but instead had to board a flight to Kuala Lumpur, ministry officials said.
“The OT and the LA licences are issued for the short term (temporary purposes). This is to meet development needs,” Sudarsono said, in reference to the newspaper report.
He said Adenan’s directive in regard to the issuance of timber licences had been strictly adhered to by the forestry department.
Adenan had on several occasions announced that there would be no more new timber concessions or new alienations of state land for commercial oil palm plantations, except for land approved for the Ladang Rakyat programme and NCR land development.
Sudarsono said during land development, timber of commercial value needed to be cleared. In such cases, OT and AT licences would be issued to assist the landowners to properly dispose of the timber.
Sudarsono said OT and LA licences were issued for lands that had been approved for development or agriculture conversions. However, this timber was barred from export and sold only to local mills.
LA is issued for an area of less than 100ha while OT is issued for an area above 100ha.
“If we have wood to clear to give way for development and we just throw away these resources, they would be wasted.
“These licences are designed to meet that particular need,” Sudarsono said.
“The land is being approved for development and not for timber concessions.”
So far this year, 42 OT licences are still valid, some of which are pending renewal. There were 100 licenses valid last year, according to data provided by the ministry.
In addition, seven LA licences were issued, said Sapuan.
Sapuan said the forest department has “very strict” conditions for applications for OT licences, whereby the NCR land must be gazetted under Section 6 of the Land Code.
The landowner must also obtain project approval letters from the Land Custody and Development Authority (LCDA), Sarawak Land Consolidation Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra), the Department of Agriculture Sarawak, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), Rubber Industry Smallholders Development Authority (Risda), Federal Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Felcra) or joint venture land development agreements with the private sector.
The Borneo Post is owned by the KTS Group, Sarawak’s sixth largest timber firm.
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KTS has timber concessions covering 144,485ha as of last year, according to state DAP leader Chong Chieng Jen, citing publicly available data.