The Year of Forest

1. Last year 2010 was the year of biodiversity. The year was celebrated with many events such as symposia and seminars that discussed the biodiversity issues. The meeting at Kyoto, Copenhagen and Cancun discussed the fate of fragile biodiversity and yet there were not many optimisms expressed on the fate of dwindling biodiversity.

2. Closer to home it was the same fate that befalls biodiversity as it was in 2009. The government and her officials paid lip-services to biodiversity as it did not promise income-generating. The officers in the ministries also didn't address biodiversity as they only followed the fancies of their bosses. It was during the time of Dato' Subuh Yaasin when he was the Sec-general of MONRE that biodiversity received some encouragements.

3. This year is the year of the forests. While the arboreal and temperate forests have not much to celebrate, the tropical forests have much to offer and deliberate. Every month more and more tropical forests in Amazonia, Madagascar, Central Africa and Indo-Malesia suffer in the hands of tree-cutters, loggers and unsustainable developers. In Malaysia it is not much different over the last decade as more ecosystems and species are put in peril.

4. But the year is here to stay to celebrate in what-ever form. I must say in the last decade the Department of Forestry Peninsular Malaysia with the assistance of all State Forestry Departments had embarked on a challenging scientific expeditions to generate biodiversity data to help them manage the remaining forests in a very sustainable manner. It is not impossible to achieve it if ones put some thoughts and sincerity and accountability in it.

5. Yet the forests in Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor, Perak, Kedah, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan are regenerating at a pace too slow for the annual coupe to allocate. That is possible as the tree-cutters and loggers didn't follow the strictest prescriptions when felling the timber trees. So much so river corridors were not observed and the effects on wildlife and seedlings including the regenerants were not monitored.