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INTERNATIONAL ALERT TO SAVE SABAH RAINFORESTS FROM PULP AND PAPER PROJECT IN KALABAKAN. 23rd October 2000 LOGGING AND FOREST CLEAREANCE OPERATION WITHOUT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT 3% OF SABAH'S LAND FOR GIANT PULP AND PAPER PROJECT In Kalabakan, Tawau, Sabah, East Malaysia, a business venture between a State-owned company, Lions Group of Malaysia and the China Fuxing Pulp and Paper Industries of China will be developing a US1.1 billion plantation and pulp and paper mill project. The project
will necessitate the felling of 240,000 ha of natural forest to
be replaced by a huge pulp and paper mill and a massive monoculture
plantation of the Black Wattle trees (Acacia mangium) or also known
as dry acacia or the mangium tree, a fast growing plant which is
native to tropical Queensland, Australia. The size of this huge
project, some 4 times the size of Singapore, will take up approximately
3% of Sabah and 6% of its remaining virgin forest. The mill is expected
to process 750 tonnes of pulp a year.
Under the Sabah Conservation of Environment (Prescribed Activities)
Order 1999, any forest which is cleared for the felling of timber
covering an area of 500ha or more or any development of forest plantation
of 500ha or more requires an Environmental Impact assessment (EIA)
to be done.
Today, 12 000 ha of the land of the proposed project have already been logged without a single EIA done. The state-owned company, Innoprise Corporation Sdn Bhd is proceeding to log another 33 000 ha. According to newspaper reports, the company claimed that it could not afford to wait for the EIA to be submitted. The company is only now in the midst of appointing a consultant to handle the EIA. The company asserted that it need not carry out an EIA for the logging as the Sabah Conservation of Environment (Prescribed Activities) Order 1999, came into effect only in September 1999 while the company had already begun logging since 1998. Innoprise further asserted that it proceeded with the logging operation based on the Coup Permit from the Sabah Forestry Department in 1996. The company reportedly is planning to conduct two EIA reports only, one for the plantation, the other for the mill. The Chief Minister
of Sabah seemed to defend the legality of its state-owned company's
operation. He too claimed that the logging operation was legally
licensed in 1996, well before the State EIA requirement was enforced
and in addition to that, the licence did not specify the need for
an EIA. In a response to SAM's query, the Sabah Environmental Conservation Department said that the Federal law did not apply to Sabah as the project involved matters such as 'land' and 'forests' which are within the jurisdiction of the States. Malaysia operates under a Federal-State system, where there is a division of areas between the Federal legislature and the States'. The Sabah Government is clearly using a strict legal argument to maintain that no EIA is needed to log such a huge area of forests until they enforced their own law in 1999! Worsening things up, on September 26, The Star, a national Malaysian daily, reported that the "conditions" stipulated in the Forestry Department licence on environmental protection are also being disregarded by the company. According to The Star, the company has violated the restrictions that prohibit logging activities from taking place right to a river's bank or on slopes of more than 25 degrees and clearing of a slope of more than 15 degrees steep. The company also does not seem to maintain the required 20m buffer zone between development activities and the boundaries of a river catchment. SAM is appalled at how the logging can proceed without the submission and approval of an EIA Report by the Department of Environmental Conservation of Sabah, when the logging is clearly for the pulp mill project. The Sabah Government should not fragment the various activities involved in establishing the pulp mill, viz. logging for the tree plantations, establishing the tree plantations and construction of the pulp mill. We are very troubled by the fragmented approach taken by the Sabah State Government to justify the lack of an EIA for the logging activities. The purpose of an EIA prior to the commencement of any project is to assess the environmental impacts and ascertain if the mitigation measures proposed by the project developers are sufficient to minimise environmental damage. The cumulative impacts of the project as a whole should be taken into account. If foreseen environmental impacts are severe and the mitigation measures inadequate, the EIA must be rejected and the project should not be allowed to commence. Innoprise's actions seem to imply that they are confident that their two other EIAs (for the plantation and the mill) will be approved. This is legally questionable and environmentally risky. The Sabah Government in allowing the logging to go on is making a mockery of the law and is undermining the EIA process. By allowing the logging to proceed without an EIA, the Sabah Government is completely disregarding the environmental impacts of the logging activities and is 'manipulating' the law. Logging before agreement is signed The most perplexing question about the issue is that as late as September, the commercial department of the Chinese Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reportedly maintained that "the project is still under negotiation." Nothing is finalised yet. It is a great puzzle to us as to how this one joint venture project was allowed to commence its operation even before its own internal agreements are finalised; risking the area to be wasted, should the project fail to take-off. In addition to that, Innoprise's claim that it had begun logging the area since 1998 raises another important question. The Memorandum of Understanding for the project was only signed in 1997 and an early agreement between the various joint-venture partners was signed in August 1999. How could have Innoprise begun the logging operation when even the first agreement between their business partners had not taken place? ECOLOGICAL DAMAGE The entire area, a world-renowned biodiversity hotspot, contains significant populations of rare animals and plants. Elephants, orang utans, Sumatran rhinoceros, sunbears, gibbons, clouded leopards and the Bornean Bay cat and wild cattle (tembadau or banteng), once thought to be extinct, are all present. The forest probably contains somewhere in the region of 120 mammals, 280 birds, and more than 2500 tree species. The proposed plantation scheme would assault this pristine environment, turning the remaining forests as "islands", restricting the movement of wildlife. This could potentially decimate their population. Wild animals are reported to have been sighted more often, probably fleeing from the logged area. Does it make sense to annihilate this forest, the very area that has the best chance of being managed sustainably, when other forest areas in Sabah have been ravaged by fire to the point where natural forest management is impossible? Erosion What will the effects be on the price of water treatment for the villages downstream? Will excessive silt cause the catch of villagers who fish along the rivers to dwindle? Will there be greater flooding? Will the sediment deposited at the river estuaries eventually reach the coastal mangrove vegetation in Cowie Bay, depleting marine resources? With only 12 000 ha logged, disastrous reports have already emerged.
The lush Danum Valley has already been flooded in recent months.
Threats of fire, pests, wild animal and dry spells
POISONS
FROM PULPING AND BLEACHING
Furthermore
about 300 chemical compounds have been identified in pulp and paper
mill effluents. They are:
Air emissions of pulp and paper mills are known to emit:
UNSUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC PLANNING The area is proposed to be planted at about 20,000 hectares per year, with 32,000 hectares in the first year alone, according to Innoprise Corporation. Clearing at this rate is possible but re-planting is surely not. Even the biggest operator in Sabah is now re-planting up to 6,000 ha a year (less than a third of that proposed), after 15 years of experience. The proposed plan would require 38 million seedlings to be planted in year one. In the coming years, 23 million seedlings would be planted annually. The logging operation is certainly an irresponsible corporate decision when we consider the fact that the nursery to produce the seedlings for the plantation has not even been set up while 12 000 ha have been logged. At the proposed rate, by the start of the project's fourth year, workers would embark on planting the routine load of 23 million seedlings, while taking care of the previous 85 million seedlings already planted over an area of 720 square kilometres, an area larger than Singapore. Can this really be done? It is obvious that the State is dangerously risking the creation of huge chunks of bare and uncovered land in what used to be a verdant rainwater-sponge. As it is right
now, swathes of bare earth are beginning to disfigure the once biodiversity
hotspot and the rivers are already brown with silt. CALL FOR ACTION It is for these environmental concerns that SAM has called the
State Government of Sabah and the Federal Government to:
Support our call for action SAM appeals to all concerned groups and individuals to send all letters of concern to: YAB Datuk Seri
Dr. Mahathir bin Mohamad Fax : 603-8883444 YAB Datuk Seri
Panglima Osu Haji Sukam Fax : 6088-435350
Fax : 6088-238120 Mr. Daniel K.S.
Khiong Fax : 6089-669170 Kindly request the State Government of Sabah and the Federal Government of Malaysia to take the actions that we have demanded above. Please send copies of your letters of concern to us at: Sahabat Alam
Malaysia Tel : 604-2276930 |
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