Future laws may make it a must for loggers to replant trees

Survey drone: Dr Wan Junaidi (second from left) steering a drone. Drones are expected to be used by forestry officials to look for poachers and illegal loggers.

KUALA LUMPUR: Green laws in the near future may make it compulsory for loggers to replant trees immediately, to replace those they have cut down.

The idea was among others mooted as part of an international pledge to make sure that a 50% forest cover is kept.

“Whoever clears the forests has to replace (replant) the forests. Immediately,” Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar told reporters here yesterday.

“If one state wants to do a mini-hydro (project) and it inundates or destroys 3,000 hectares of forest ... we want that to be replaced with 3,000 hectares (somewhere else),” he added.

Dr Wan Junaidi was speaking after meeting Forestry Department officials, and suggested ideas that might be drafted into environment laws. He said Malaysia had earlier pledged 50% forest cover at arenas such as the COP21 United Nation climate change conference.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement once signed, he added, also requires the country to keep its biodiversity intact.

The ideas included giving the department the responsibility to check up on poachers’ animal traps, which wildlife officials look for.

He also hoped they would be presented before Parliament this year, said Dr Wan Junaidi, adding it was not enough for them to be official policy alone.

“If we (have) no force of law behind it, it is very difficult for KP (forestry director-general) to enforce,” he said.

He, however, said his ministry had “a lot of” laws to go through, adding that it might be more than what the Dewan Rakyat could handle this year.

In a related matter, he said the ministry was also looking at missing drones to scout for possible poachers and other forest-related theft in every state.

A press release handed out after the event showed that RM140,000 has been allocated for this purpose, with the drones to be used this year.

On the Sarawak floods, he said the ministry was studying ways on handling the rising waters there.

An early proposal he said, involved a 6km river-wide channel that would cut through two main roads, take five years to build and cost RM1.6bil.

When asked about The Star report on illegal wildlife sales over social media, Dr Wan Junaidi said it was not “rampant” or that big a problem.

He, however, implied that the law was not really deterring people from selling wild animals, and the Government might have to look at the law again.