No logging in Persit forest reserve, says Dept

The department will certainly take appropriate action to rectify the situation, including repairing the steel mesh where necessary, said Pahang Forestry Department director Datuk Dr Mohd Hizamri Mohd Yasin.

KUANTAN: Nature lovers can be rest assured that there will be no new logging in the Persit forest reserve as what has been claimed on social media, says the Pahang Forestry Department.

Its director Datuk Dr Mohd Hizamri Mohd Yasin (pic) said there was an old logging permit for the area in Lipis. However, circumstances had changed in recent months that rendered it invalid.

“There was an old approval for Yayasan Pahang. But there was some confusion that a briefing session was held even though the state executive council that convened on May 15 this year agreed that the area be turned into a water catchment forest under the National Forestry Act 1984, ” he said.

Dr Mohd Hizamri said logging approval for the area would be revoked. He was asked to respond to a Facebook video purportedly showing a briefing held in Merapoh on upcoming logging activities.

Since 2016, there had been calls to stop logging in the 1,000ha forest. The area is said to be a wildlife sanctuary besides being a clean water source for Merapoh residents.

Last year, Yang di-Pertuan Agong Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah ordered that 668.9ha of the nearby Hutan Merapoh, which was previously approved as agricultural land, be gazetted as a forest reserve.