KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government is confident of reaching its target of expanding its Totally Protected Areas (TPAs) to 30% or 2.2mil hectares of the state’s landmass by next year, said Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor.
He said the Sabah Forestry Department is currently identifying approximately 220,000 hectares to be designated as TPA to achieve this target.
TPAs in Sabah are gazetted forest reserves primarily for conservation, such as Class I, Class VI, and Class VII, as well as forested areas under the enactment of Sabah Parks and Sabah Wildlife Department.
Speaking at the launch of the 20th Malaysian Forestry Conference and the 110th anniversary celebration of the Sabah Forestry Department on Tuesday night (Oct 29), Hajiji said the Department has achieved various successes since its inception.
He said this includes increasing the state’s TPA to the current 2mil hectares or 27.3% of Sabah’s total landmass.
“At the same time, the Department is also in the final stages of amending the Forestry Enactment 1968. This amendment is important to modernise Sabah's forest administration framework and laws regarding forestry so that they align with present realities," he added.
Hajiji said other important milestones by the Department include successfully launching Sabah's second strategic masterplan and an action plan for forest plantation development (2022-2036), as well as devising the Sabah State Forest Masterplan, which is currently being finalised.
“Today, the Department recorded another achievement by launching the Sabah Mangrove Action Plan (SMAP) in collaboration with Sabah WWF.
“SMAP’s main objective is to provide guidelines and transformational steps for mangrove management and planning in Sabah.
“Despite all this progress, we must not be complacent, as various challenges must be faced, especially threats to the forest ecosystem such as climate change and the conversion of land for agriculture and development,” he said.
Hajiji added that the Sabah Forestry Department has been appointed as the secretariat for the Sabah Climate Change Action Committee (SCAC) to spearhead the state’s climate change agenda. The committee aims to coordinate efforts to reduce impact and adapt to climate change, while integrating forestry into this wider strategy.
“For example, the carbon credit sale from the Kuamut Rainforest Conservation Project (KRCP) in Sabah, traded through Bursa Carbon Exchange (BCX), is the first carbon credit sale in Malaysia under BCX.
“To date, the project has generated about 4.2mil Verified Carbon Units (VCUs),” Hajiji said.
The news of the KRCP initiative was announced to the public earlier in April this year.
