24/03/2012 (The Star) - The state government is prepared to confront foreign critics who are increasingly aggressive in their verbal attacks towards derailing the state’s drive to build more hydro-electric dams and develop oil palm plantations.

Second Resources Management and Environment Minister, Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hassan said the state government would counter-attack using facts and figures that showed the state’s capability in sustaining its ecosystem while developing its dams and plantations.

He was against foreign governments and non-governmental bodies such as those based in Europe for continuing their aggressive bashing at the state government, saying that Sarawak was in fact much greener compared to many European countries.

“Our state is being harshly criticised on all fronts by organisations that are out to discredit us.

 
Eyes and ears: Tengah (second from right) presenting a certificate of
appointment to an honorary wildlife ranger, as Communications Assistant Minister
Datuk Lee Kim Shin (left) looking on in Miri yesterday.

“They are painting inaccurate pictures of the state by accusing us of destroying our forests, killing our orang utans, and robbing our people of their lands.

“Their accusations are not based on facts. These accusations do not reflect the realities on the ground.

“Sarawak can boast that when we built the Bakun Dam, we managed to rescue almost all the flora and fauna in the region.

“Sarawak can also boast of the fact that we are about to gazette one million hectares of forests as totally protected reserves.

“We will have at least six million hectares of permanent forests out of the 12.4 million hectares of our total land area.

“We have also gazetted many of our mangrove swamps as mangrove forests reserves. Even our beaches have been gazetted as protected areas, with a number of them declared as Ramsar sites.

“How many of the countries in Europe have these natural assets left?

“If one were to travel from London to Paris by train, all you can see on both sides during the journey are land that have already been developed.

“Developed countries that had been aggressively criticising us, like Switzerland and Holland, have only less than 10 percent of their countries covered by forests.

“Sarawak is still one of the mega biodiversity hotspots in the world, so we have a proud record of being able to manage our forests well,” he said during a ceremony for the presentation of certificates of appointments to about four dozen honorary wildlife rangers in Miri and Baram districts.

Awang Tengah, who is also State Public Utilities Minister, said the state government gave an assurance that while it was going to construct other dams, it was going to rescue as much flora and fauna from the affected areas.

He said the state had also gazetted orang utans habitats as totally protected areas, and pointed out that areas earmarked for oil palm plantation expansion are areas not populated by the primates.

As for improving forests and wildlife management, he said the Sarawak Forestry Corporation and the Forestry Department were being revamped to make them more effective in terms of administration and enforcement.

Part of these revamps include getting the local communities to be more actively involved in protecting wildlife, he stressed.

“We are always trying hard to tackle issues relating to abuse of our wildlife and illegal activities that impact the forests and the ecosystem.

“We are improving all the time and we need to communities to play a bigger role in helping us,” he said.

Sarawak Forestry chief executive officer, Ali Yusop, in his address, said Sarawak already had 613 honorary wildlife rangers, and plus the 46 appointed yesterday in Miri and Baram, more ears and eyes will monitor the ecosystem and its flora and fauna.