Forestry Dept denies delaying carbon trade deal

It’s up to Hoch Standard to meet requirements, says chief conservator

KOTA KINABALU: An area of 190,051ha of totally protected forests has been allocated to Singapore-based Hoch Standard to carry out its pilot programme to harness carbon credits, says the Conservator of Sabah Forests, Datuk Frederick Kugan (pic).

In dismissing allegations cast on the Forestry Department that it was delaying the implementation of the Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) with Hoch Standard, Kugan said the pilot plot at Nuluhon Trusmadi Forest Reserve (Class I reserve) was allocated to the company after Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Seri Dr Jeffrey Kitingan made a formal request in June last year.

“At that time, the department had viewed the request as reasonable as the pilot site could test the framework for parts of the NCA and the potential gains due to the state (through carbon credit sales),” he said in a statement yesterday.

Kugan was responding to Kitingan’s political secretary Anuar Abdul Ghani’s claims at the just-concluded Borneo Rainforests Law Conference that the delays in the implementation of the NCA were “self-induced” by the department.

“The comments (by Anuar) are misleading.

“The Forestry Department, on behalf of the Sabah government, is of the view that Anuar’s comments on behalf of the DCM I that Hoch Standard should sue the state government, while insinuating untrustworthiness of the state government, are totally uncalled for,” Kugan said.

He said it is now up to the company to meet other requirements, which include getting additional unencumbered forest areas to develop the natural capital for the carbon project.

The issue of Sabah’s NCA deal was highlighted on the sidelines of the conference organised by the Commonwealth Lawyers Association and Sabah Law Society.

Anuar, who presented a talk on the NCA stating that he was reflecting the views of Kitingan, among other issues, said the NCA controversy blocked Sabah from cashing in on the carbon credit trade.

At another session during the conference, legal adviser to the state government Tengku Datuk Fuad Tengku Ahmad said the October 2021 NCA deal to carry out carbon trading on two million hectares of the state’s forests could not be implemented as it was legally flawed.

He said the agreement did not conform to the state’s biodiversity laws (Sabah Biodiversity Enactment 2000) on the designated areas and it also lacked transparency on carbon credit sales.

Furthermore, he said, totally protected forests could not be used for carbon credit trade generating projects as this was not in line with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which specifies that carbon credits can only be generated if the area concerned is under threat of deforestation.