TERJEMAHAN RINGKAS

Malaysia adalah antara negara yang kununnya bercakap menjaga balak dan hutan tetapi itu semua retorik untuk menipu rakyat dan pasaran.

Balak dan perabut menyumbang RM1.7 bilion ekspot negara, dimana negara merupakan antara pengekdpot kayu keras (hardwood) terbesar di dunia.

Tetapi ini mengorbankan 1,560 batu persegi pohon-pohon yang rendang menghiasi alam setiap tahun. Walaupun 1/3 negara masih dilitupi hutan, kadar penebangan yang dikatakan 'terkawal' itu akan membotakkan negara juga satu masa nanti. Lagipun Malaysia tidak berminat untuk menerima pakai piagam antarabangsa dalam menguruskan hutan. Nasib orang asli langsung tidak diperdulikan - malah mereka dinyahkan atau dibunuh dengan sewenang-wenang demi balak yang lebih menguntungkan. Di Sarawak, jenayah itu sengaja dibiar menular dan merosakkan alam dan manusia kerana ada dalang di dalam parti yang memerintah kerajaan. Keuntungan dari balak itu juga digunakan untuk menyogok rasuah kepada pemimpin - kerana merekalah yang memilih dan memberi kawasan untuk dinodai dengan syarat ganjaran diperolehi.

Kini kerajaan seperti mahu mengikut piagam Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) - satu piagam yang menjadi syarat untuk balak dapat memnembusi pasaran Eropah, Amerika Latin dan Amerika Utara. Ini memeranjatkan aktivis pecinta alam dan hak kemanusiaan. Bolehkah kita percaya semua ini?

KOMEN

Saya ingin mengajak pembaca mengimbau beberapa pendedahan KM2 yang lepas-lepas.

a. Jalinan Balak Sarawak

b. Dalang Balak Tanam Pokok Pula

Disana terserlah DUA lapuran GreenPeace betapa intimnya jalinan politik untuk menodai hutan di Sarawak yang didalangi oleh kroni yang sudah tidak asing lagi:

1. Yaw Teck Seng yang bertali keluarga dengan Ketua Menteri Sarawak dan bertali koporat intim dengan Mirzan dalam Tamex Timber Sdn Bhd.
   

2. James Wong (Menteri Alam Sekitar dan Kesihatan Awam Sarawak) dari parti SNAP yang intim dengan Limbang Trading (Bintulu) Sdn Bhd. Beliau begitu intim dengan kumpulan WTK, salah satu syarikat balak terbesar (Top 5) di Sarawak.
   

-Kapal Berita-

From The Economist

Good fellers

Jan 25th 2001

LOGGING in South-East Asia is often a criminal affair. Illegal fellers have denuded much of Indonesia, and Myanmar's army, using slaves, is fast cutting down that country's tropical trees. In Cambodia and Laos, both rebels and soldiers have been felling trees for years, leaving land bare and vulnerable to erosion and flooding. In Vietnam, where the timber industry appears to be better controlled, illegal loggers nevertheless still flourish. And Thai monks have become so desperate to protect their country's few surviving trees that they wrap saffron robes on the trunks as a blessing.

Malaysia has long promoted itself as the big exception in the region. The government talks of 'sustainable logging': chopping down only as many trees as can be felled without endangering the survival of its forests. Timber and furniture industries provide jobs, tax revenue and, for loggers, political influence. Last year the country produced 22m cubic metres of sawn logs, earning M$1.7 billion ($450m) from exports. It sells more tropical logs and sawn tropical timber abroad than any other country, and is one of the biggest exporters of hardwood. Domestic demand for wood, especially furniture, grew by 12% last year.

Yet all this means an annual net loss of perhaps 400,000 hectares (1,560 square miles) of trees, between 1% and 2% of Malaysia's forest cover, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation, though it admits exact measurements are hard to get. Even though a third of the country is covered by virgin or planted forest, the rate of felling is high-and not in the long term sustainable. Worse, in the eyes of western campaigners, Malaysia has refused to adopt international standards on managing forests. Greedy loggers in Malaysia are accused of ignoring the interests of indigenous people who live in the forests. In Sarawak, one of the largest timber-producing states, activists say locals have been displaced or even killed by loggers.

Forest nomads are losing their way of life, fish stocks have dwindled as topsoil has been washed into rivers, and wood is denied to those who want to build houses and boats, says Forests Monitor, an environmental group. It also says profits from timber help to fuel corruption as loggers help to finance local ruling parties, which in turn allocate areas to be felled. "Sarawak is a flashpoint of bad forest practice," says another observer of the timber industry.

Now, however, the national government seems ready to adopt standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). These are used, mainly in Europe, Latin America and North America, to certify that timber comes from well-managed forests. In December the government and 200 representatives of indigenous and other groups agreed that the whole industry should be certified. That means giving a voice to local communities and ensuring that trees are planted as well as felled. Activists who came from Sarawak said they were surprised even to be allowed to attend the meeting (in the past their passports have been snatched and lawyers forbidden to meet them), let alone to reach an agreement.

So why has Malaysia's prickly prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, ever a proud opponent of western values, agreed to a scheme devised by green groups such as the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and the Tropical Forest Trust, which is financed by European furniture shops? He may have realised at last that being green pays well. Malaysia sells much wood in China and Japan, where buyers do not care about its history, but the most valuable markets are in the West. There, consumers want to believe their wood has not come to them at the expense of the environment and will pay as much as 50% more for certified stuff. That may mean as much as $1,000 for a cubic metre of tropical wood, says Steve Howard of WWF.

Forests Monitor is still sceptical that Sarawak, which has few trees left but large deposits of oil, will ever benefit. But for some Malaysian forests, such as one of 100,000 hectares in Sabah, which have already met FSC-standards, lucrative sales should be pending. Other states, take note.