In the Media
Malaysia: Can REDD save the forests of Sarawak?
February 07, 2012
redd-monitor.org
One year ago, Wetlands International released a report that revealed that the rate of deforestation in Malaysia’s province of Sarawak is about 2% a year. Most is being converted to oil palm plantations. “Total deforestation in Sarawak is 3.5 times as much as that for entire Asia, while deforestation of peat swamp forest is 11.7 times as much,” the report states.
To make matters worse, the rate of destruction is accelerating. Between 2005 and 2007, 1.89% of Sarawak’s forest was cleared. By 2009-2010, this figure had increased to 2.14%. The area of forest on peatland has decreased from over one million hectares in 2005 to around 700,000 by 2010.
The drivers of deforestation include conversion to massive oil palm plantations and hydropower dams. In June 2011, Survival International put out an alert about 1,000 Indigenous Penan who were to be evicted from their forest to make way for the Murum dam. The government had sold the land where they where supposed to move to Shin Yang, a Malaysian oil palm company.
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Keywords: Asia, deforestation, FSC, Indigenous, Malaysia, oil palm, Penan, Sarawak