Malaysian Timber Ban a Veneer

Forest and Bird, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1 May 1990, Page 8

Malaysian Timber Ban a Veneer

THE RECENT ANNOUNCEMENT by the Malaysian Government of a proposed ban on the export of logs is nothing but a hollow sham, according to the Japan Tropical Forests Action Network. In a move praised by some conservationists, Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad late last year announced there would be a ban on the export of logs from Sarawak and Sabah. Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer has been given some of the credit for persuading the Malaysians to come up with a ban. However it has become increasingly clear since the announcement that the Malaysian Government is using the ban proposal simply as a ploy to buy time while the forests are destroyed at an even faster rate. Nigel Hooper of JATAN says that logging is actually increasing so that all available timber may be extracted before the terms of the ban are enacted. "Companies are entering some land for a fourth time. They are logging even small trees that are then thrown away, the purpose being to ensure that regeneration is impossible. The devastated forest is then converted to some form of mono-agriculture such as palm oil or rubber," he says. His comments are supported by the Utasan Konsumer, published in Penang, which reports that Prime Industries Minister Datuk Seri Lim Keng Yaik has postponed the ban until 1995.

Comments the paper: "He forgot to mention that by 1995 there would hardly be any primary (virgin) forests left... Sabah’s forests will be logged out by the early 1990s, while Sarawak's virgin forests are estimated to vanish in seven years." Besides the wildlife and plants, what is also at stake in the forests is the survival of the Penan people. In a last desperate attempt to save their forest homeland, the Penan visited Japan in March to beg the Japanese Government to place an immediate ban on the importation of logs from Sarawak and Sabah.

Names of companies involved in the destruction have a familiar ring — the Marubeni Corporation and C.Itoh Ltd are of course behind rainforest destruction in New Zealand. JATAN is calling on the New Zealand Government to disallow commercial transactions between New Zealand companies and the loggers, and conservationists in this country are being asked to boycott the companies and their products.