Steps are being taken by the Johor Forestry Department to ensure that logging activities will not encroach on natural trails of wild animals that connect the various forest reserves.
Acting director Yahaya Mahamood said preventive measures were in place to ensure logging activities were kept out of areas designated under the Central Forest Spine (CFS) project.
The CFS identified 31 priority sites across Peninsular Malaysia where forests need to be connected either via underground culverts or by replanting tracts of land to become forests.
Connecting these tracts of forest allows for better movement of wild animals and makes it easier for the transfer of genes and plant seeds.
Yahaya said out of three companies which had applied to conduct logging activities near the Sembrong Forest Reserve in Mersing, only two were allowed to do so on their proposed sites.
“The third company was asked to move out of its proposed site, as the area had encroached on the CFS,” he said when commenting on a report by an English daily about logging activities that had begun near the Sembrong Forest Reserve in northeastern Johor.
Yahaya said no companies would be allowed to conduct logging activities in the CFS corridor.
“The company agreed to move their operations from the affected areas.”
Yahaya refused to name any of the three companies. He said the three companies were awarded contracts to fell and replant rubber trees in 2006 under the Forest Plantation Project.
The rubber trees under the project, he said, were of a species called timber latex clone. This species is planted for its rubberwood, not its latex.
However, a year later, issues concerning the CFS cropped up.
He said after concerns were raised, the projects were delayed until 2010.
“We cannot simply cancel the project after awarding the contract to the companies because of their investments and there were legal issues involved. Thus, areas which the companies had earmarked for logging and which affected the CFS were reviewed and the project removed.
“The corridor includes areas like the Endau-Rompin National Park, and the forest complex to the east (Labis Timur Forest Reserve and the Endau-Kluang Wildlife Reserve) and southeast (Mersing Forest Reserve, Lenggor Tengah Forest Reserve and Lenggor Timur Forest Reserve).”
The network of the CFS spans throughout the peninsula from the north to the south and involves eight states — Pahang, Johor, Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Perak, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu.”
