Malaysia has suffered the largest forest loss rate in the entire world over the past three years, Taiping MP Nga Kor Ming said today after referring to environmentalist website Mongabay and Google's global forest loss map.

He said that Malaysia's rate of forest loss over the past three years stands at 14.4 percent compared to previous rainforest cover, followed by Paraguay which lost 9.6 percent.

NONE Malaysia is ranked ninth in the world in area of forest loss. In the last three years, the size of rainforest lost is bigger than Denmark, and almost as big as the entire rainforest reserve available in Peninsular Malaysia.

In a BBC report on Google's forest loss mapping last week, Malaysia was named alongside Paraguay, Angola, and Indonesia as among the countries with the highest deforestation rates.

Malaysia has lost 4.72 million hectares in rainforest area in the last three years, Nga said.

Shocking loss

He also pointed out that the National Resources and Environment Ministry has previously stated that the annual limit of logging area in the country should not exceed a quota of 40,334 hectares.

"If that is the case, it would be impossible for Malaysia to suffer such a shocking loss in three years, because we have lost 1.57 million hectares in a year," Nga said.

He said that the amount of forest lost was 3,907 percent higher than the quota set by the government.

"As such, this raises the issue of abuse of power and corrupt practices," he said.

Nga called on the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and the Auditor General to look into this issue.