By Muhammad Basir Roslan
KUALA LUMPUR: For over 30 Mah Meri Orang Asli villagers, the oil palm smallholdings sprawled over 20 hectares of land, just a kilometre away from their settlement in Kampung Bukit Bangkong in Sepang, Selangor, have been their main source of income.
They have been tending their oil palm for 12 years now and not once did they think the land was part of the Sepang Kechil Tambahan Permanent Forest Reserve which comes under the purview of the Selangor state government.
They came to know of the status of the land during a meeting in 2018 with the then state executive councillor in charge of tourism and environment Hee Loy Sian.
One of the villagers involved, who only wanted to be identified as Awang, said together with their village head Taha Akhir, they then decided to seek the advice of the Selangor Forestry Department (JPNS) to resolve the confusion over the status of their oil palm land.
“Some may think we are exploiting the permanent forest reserve (HSK) land but we are not doing so. For us, this land is part of our customary land. Moreover, our people have been living in this area for decades and we feel we have the right to the land that exists in our settlement area and can cultivate it for agricultural purposes,” Awang, 45, told Bernama.
He said in 2019 he and 32 fellow oil palm cultivators met the JPNS director to discuss the process of legalising their oil palm lots and obtaining a use permit to cultivate the land concerned. For this, various procedures were carried out including paying a surveyor to measure and demarcate their land lots.
However, four years have since gone by and the state authorities have yet to respond to their application for a permit to use the land.
The National Forestry Act 1984 (Act 313) has provisions to allow agricultural activities to be carried out on HSK land without the need to degazette the area concerned and remove its status as a permanent forest reserve.
Outsiders exploiting land?
Awang, meanwhile, claimed that “outsiders” have now moved in to exploit the land where their oil palm smallholdings are located.
Commenting on this, Taha said the individuals concerned have become bolder of late as they seem to have been issued use permits by the state.
“(Due to their presence here) we dare not go to our smallholdings openly to harvest our oil palm fruits… we only go there when none of them are around,” he said, adding that their incomes have been affected as a result.
They used to harvest and sell about two tonnes of oil palm fruit bunches and earn more than RM1,000 a month. But these days their earnings have dropped to RM700 monthly as they are not able to harvest as many fruit bunches as they used to.
Asked by the Orang Asli what they were doing there, the outsiders replied they were “paid workers”.
“But recently, these ‘workers’ brought in an excavator to flatten the land on which our oil palm is cultivated,” Taha lamented.
Worried about their future, he hoped that JPNS would come forward to discuss with them the status of their application for the use permit as well as clarify the current situation considering that the oil palm smallholdings constituted their bread and butter.
Bernama has been working on this issue since December and its attempts to get a response from JPNS director Datuk Ahmad Fadzil Abdul Majid have not succeeded to date.
Exploitation not limited to Selangor
In Malaysia, the exploitation of permanent forest reserves is not something new and besides Selangor, it occurs in other states as well. As such, it is one of the major challenges faced by the Forestry Department which is responsible for protecting forest reserves.
Peninsular Malaysia Forestry Department (JPSM) director-general Datuk Mohd Ridza Awang told Bernama in an interview that exploitation occurs mostly in areas bordering an HSK as well as in areas with a lot of development projects located near permanent forests. It also occurs in HSK where use permits have been granted to individuals to utilise certain parts of the forestland.
Based on available data, 31 cases of violations under Section 32 of the National Forestry Act 1984 were recorded in 2022. This section pertains to the occupation of, or carrying out activities on, a permanent forest reserve.
Ten of the 31 cases were detected in areas close to the HSK’s border. In 2022, there were also three cases of use permit holders violating the rules by encroaching on land outside the boundaries set by their permits. The same year, a total of 37 individuals were detained for exploitation of forestland, with four of them having already been prosecuted in court and fined.
“Of late, our forest enforcement squads have stepped up their checking and patrolling activities in areas at risk of exploitation, especially areas bordering HSK.
“However, such exploitation is often obscured by (legitimate) ongoing development or agricultural projects in the border areas,” said Mohd Ridza, adding that this has made it difficult for the forest enforcement officers to detect illegal encroachments into HSK.
According to him, the irresponsible attitude of individuals who have no respect for the law is the main reason why permanent forest reserves continue to be exploited despite the presence of signboards put up by the department prohibiting trespassing.
FMRS system
“These signboards are usually placed every 500 metres along the border of the HSK. As for HSK bordering settlements, high-risk areas or areas exposed to exploitation activities, the signboards to warn people against trespassing are erected at every 100 metres or at each corner of the border,” he explained.
To date, a total of 4,848,448 hectares of forested areas in Peninsular Malaysia have been gazetted as permanent forest reserves or HSK under the National Forestry Act.
Mohd Ridza stressed that JPSM will continue to view the exploitation of forests seriously and will take immediate action if it detects encroachment activities or misuse of forest resources in any HSK.
The department has various strategies to detect such activities including monitoring forests using remote sensing (FMRS) and drones. It also has its field staff conducting patrols in forested areas as well as carrying out integrated operations together with other organisations and enforcement agencies.
“The use of the FMRS system also helps us to detect any change in the forest cover inside an HSK. In the earlier stages, we successfully carried out a series of operations in areas where exploitation was detected, resulting in a reduction in the exploitation trend in the (permanent) forests concerned,” he said.
As for drones, JPSM and the state forestry departments in Peninsular Malaysia have a total of 67 units at their disposal to monitor and carry out enforcement activities in the various HSK.
Drones help the departments to detect on-site exploitation following the detection of changes in the forest cover through the FMRS system.
Mohd Ridza added that most of the cases of forest violations occurring in 2022 were detected with the help of drones.
Jail violators
Meanwhile, the penalty imposed on those convicted of occupying or carrying out activities on any permanent forest reserve was increased last year. Under amendments to the National Forestry Act, passed by Parliament in August 2022, the maximum fine was increased to RM5 million and the jail term to 20 years.
Prior to the amendments, the penalty was a fine not exceeding RM50,000 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both.
Environmental sustainability expert Dr Haliza Abdul Rahman welcomed the stiffer penalty but feels that a mandatory jail sentence should be imposed on the culprits responsible for forest exploitation.
She said only this way will the government be able to send a clear signal that it is serious about protecting and conserving the nation’s forests.
“I feel a mandatory jail term is necessary because these environmental robbers are not ordinary people. They are aggressive and greedy; some are even armed and use their weapons to attack enforcement officials. In fact, I’m proposing that forest officers be given the power to shoot intruders in certain situations if their lives are at risk,” she said. – BERNAMA
