Bukit Lagong quarries: Watchdog hits Selangor exco with eight demands

Unconvinced by the response of Selangor executive councillor Hee Loy Sian over Malaysiakini's exposure of the approval of 27 quarries in Bukit Lagong Forest Reserve, the Rimba Disclosure Project (RDP) has pressed him with a list of eight hard-hitting demands.

This was after Hee (above), who is in charge of tourism, the environment, green technology, and Orang Asli affairs, said that around 28 percent of the Bukit Lagong forest reserve in Kuala Lumpur is set to be quarried without the land being excised from the reserve.

"While we thank Hee for his initial response, many questions remain," the group said.

Earlier, RDP, a watchdog that collates and tracks deforestation throughout the nation, revealed that the forest reserve lands in Rawang and Sungai Buloh areas were being sold online.

A further investigation by Malaysiakini revealed that three developers are linked to the Selangor state government.

Two of them are government-linked companies (GLC) fully owned by the state government - Menteri Besar Selangor Incorporated (MBI) and Permodalan Negeri Selangor Berhad (PNSB), both chaired by Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari.

"In line with our right to information regarding activities within forest reserves, we demand the Selangor authorities address our following demands," said the group.

The demands

1. In Hee’s response, he states that all quarry approvals were processed following established procedures. Please explain in detail what, exactly, these procedures are. Who decided that over 800ha of Bukit Lagong Forest Reserve could be parcelled out, and how were these 27 companies chosen?

Further, why was an earlier Freedom of Information Request to get clarification about quarrying in Bukit Lagong rejected under the pretext that such information is protected under the Official Secrets Act?

2. Hee stated that the quarries were approved as Minor Licences under Section 28 of the (Adoption) (Amendment) Selangor Forestry Act 1985. According to the Act, however, all minor licences expire at the end of the calendar year in which it commences, and they can only be renewed for a six-month period. Therefore, since Hee said that these were approved in 2019, kindly clarify if these licences have been renewed.

3. What were the processes, such as a cost-benefit analysis, which allowed more than 800ha of intact primary forest within a forest reserve to be chosen as the ‘sacrifice zone’ for quarrying?

4. Hee explained that all quarrying operations in forest reserves are in compliance with conditions that have been set by technical departments such as the Minerals and Geosciences Department, Environment Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Department as well as local authorities before and during the quarrying operation.

Further, he reaffirms that Environmental Impact Assessments are mandatory.

However, this is a question of more than 800ha of intact primary forest being threatened. In the past, projects which adhered to existing environmental regulations did not stop the clearance of forests as part of those projects.

Therefore, how will adherence to these environmental regulations have any impact on the fact that more than 800ha of forest is going to be cleared and the ground beneath it blown up?

5. Hee claims that these quarries will not impact Orang Asli villages. Under what basis was this statement made, when research by Malaysiakini shows that even the existing quarries are already causing negative impacts to Kampung Orang Asli Kuang such as damage to homes from blasting?

Further, Malaysiakini found that the Orang Asli are objecting to the new planned quarries as they are concerned that it will impact their customary properties, potentially pollute the Sungai Kuang which is their primary water source, and exacerbate flooding.

Therefore, did the Selangor authorities conduct mapping of the customary boundaries of the Orang Asli kampungs around Bukit Lagong before parcelling their land out to private companies?

Did the authorities adhere to international law by practising the principle of Free, Prior, Informed Consent, enshrined by the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of which Malaysia is a signatory, in the process of approving these quarries? Were the Orang Asli consulted at all during this process? How do these quarry approvals recognise the Orang Asli’s right to their tanah adat (customary land)?

6. Hee says that the area of forest reserves in the state of Selangor since 2008 until now has increased by 3.5 percent which is from 241,568.30ha in 2008 to 250,250.33ha in 2021, which is an increase of 6,862ha of forest reserve.

While this may be true, it is simply a matter of shifting numbers around on paper and forest reserves have no correlation with actual natural forest cover on the ground.

For example, over 2,400ha of the Bukit Tarek Forest Reserve is actually a rubber plantation and vast swathes of South Kuala Langat, Sungai Karang and Raja Musa Forest Reserves have been encroached on and converted to plantations.

How does Hee’s statement that forest reserves have expanded correlate with the fact that real-world forest cover is reducing, and how many hectares of Selangor’s forest reserves are actually natural forest cover?

7. Quarries technically fall under the natural resources, and not environmental, portfolio. Hee’s portfolio covers environmental matters, however, natural resources fall under the menteri besar’s portfolio. Therefore, we hope the Selangor menteri besar will make a statement on this issue in the future.

8. The RDP questions why these quarry plans were never publicly announced and we lament the fact that we had to be the ones to inform the public on your behalf. We demand the Selangor authorities list down all other approvals of projects within forest reserves.

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