S'wak boasts record tree-planting drive, watchdog wants details

Sarawak's Forest Department has claimed that the state was the record holder in tree-planting activities among all states, however, an environmental watchdog called on the department for details to gauge the impact of the drive.

Its director Hamden Mohammad told the press two days ago that over 29 million trees have been planted in the state.

This was part of the goal to plant 35 million trees by 2025 under the Le Tour De Restoration (Greening Sarawak 2.0) programme.

The programme was Sarawak's take on Putrajaya's plan to plant 100 million trees nationwide between 2020 and 2025.

Net negative?

Climate watchdog Rimbawatch, when contacted, cautioned that the Sarawak government should also publish the number of trees being cut down annually.

Rimbawatch director Adam Farhan said Global Forest Watch estimated that Sarawak had lost 33,800ha of forest in 2022 alone.

"If one assumes about 1,000 trees per hectare, that means 33,800,000 trees have been cut down, which is more than the 29,295,293 that have been planted," said Adam.

The 1,000 trees per hectare estimate was based on a 1985 paper published by Universiti Pertanian Malaysia's Lim Meng Tsai titled "Biomass and productivity of 4.5 year-old acacia mangium in Sarawak".

"Further, trees are not forests. Sarawak’s priority should be to halt all deforestation, and then only focus on planting forests.

"Otherwise, the net impact of any tree planting projects will always be negative," added Adam.

'Largest forested area'

Hamden also claimed that Sarawak had the largest forested area in Malaysia - where 62 percent of the state's 12.44 million hectares was forested.

"The largest forested area is over the permanent forest reserves, covering 3.9 million hectares with the management under the responsibility of the Sarawak Forest Department," he said.

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The definition of what constitutes a "forest" has been highly contentious.

In March, a Kini Newslab investigation revealed that although Peninsular Malaysia's land area comprised 44 percent "forest", only 14 percent of the forested area was truly protected.

According to Rimbawatch's "State of Malaysian Rainforest 2023" report, Malaysia lost 349,244.9 hectares of forests between 2017 and 2021.

Among the primary drivers of deforestation were timber plantations (41.6 percent) and palm oil plantations (15.5 percent).

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