19/07/2008 (Daily Express News) - WHAT you are looking at is an intricate web of roots weaved by mother nature over untold number of years and which man can never hope to imitate.

Sadly, despite the recent State Government directive that mangrove forests anywhere in the State must no longer be disturbed, greed was at work again.

A public complaint that someone was clearing a mature mangrove forest at a hidden corner of Bombalai in Tawau triggered a swift swoop by Forestry personnel on Thursday - catching the developer and his Hitachi excavator driver by surprise. They were taken to the Tawau Forestry headquarters for questioning.

Cleared areas include a Provisional Lease 6994. According to a Lease document dating back to 1956, one of the key conditions is it can't be clear-felled or converted to any other use without approval from the Forestry Department, the Lands and Survey Department or the Agricultural Department.

Also being investigated is whether what the developer had cleared constituted State mangrove forests. Two officers spent Wednesday night standing guard at the site to ensure the excavator was not driven away until a trailer could be dispatched to transport it to the detention site.

It was found that some 20 acres of towering mangrove trees had already been clear-felled by then and the wood probably sold at current market price of about RM500 a tonne. Deep drainage systems around the parameters had already been dug out and bunds built suggesting deliberate intention to keep out tide flow for good and wait for the wetland to dry out in the sun like peat swamp planters normally do.

The aim - to turn a key marine ecosystem meant to produce seafood into one producing cooking oil (palm oil) instead. About half the world's mangrove forests have already been destroyed, a quarter of which is contributed by shrimp farming. Now it seems demand for vegetable oil is adding pressure to destroy more.

The incident coming at the height of soaring food prices and a global worry about food security may prompt Sabah to intensify protection of its seafood producing ecosystems before the current oil palm craze drives developers to destroy them all.

A Daily Express check at the site Tuesday revealed massive prop root systems suggesting a very old system probably hundreds of years old.

Precisely the stuff that is priceless in dissipating the kind of wave energy that accompanies a tsunami.

Its shielding power for inland property and life was clearly proven in the gigantic 2004 tsunami where areas that still had mangroves along the coast were spared serious destruction unlike areas where mangroves had been removed.

At the same time, such mangroves provides a unique, safe and nutritive environment for large numbers of young marine organisms which include many commercially important species of fish, crustaceans such as crabs.

Only really old mangrove trees have massive root systems which is why no body should be allowed to clear these using chainsaws.