Sahabat Alam Malaysia wants one-stop govt website for forestry, conservation data
The Sahabat Alam Malaysia environmental group today called on the government to develop an official, user-friendly website to publish data on forests and conservation areas.
Sahabat Alam Malaysia senior research and media officer Shamila Ariffin said this would improve transparency and the health and quality of forests and conservation areas.
She said the Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Ministry, helmed by minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, should re-release the master list of protected areas in Malaysia that was launched by the then water, land and natural resources ministry in 2019.
"This publication, a result of more than two decades of labour among various government agencies and non-governmental organisations, was supposed to provide the most comprehensive and authoritative official data on our conservation areas, both terrestrial and marine.
"It was temporarily released in 2019, then inexplicably withdrawn. The minister needs to target a new date for this and a commitment that the publication will be updated annually," she told the New Straits Times.
Shamila said there was a need to develop policies and laws in consultation with indigenous communities, civil society organisations and regions to fully protect indigenous customary territories from deforestation and destructive activities and legally recognise the role of community-based forestry management.
"The failure to halt deforestation and install policies and laws to ensure that the protection of the indigenous customary land rights and forests is well-integrated are indications that in the last four decades, we have failed to manage our forests sustainably.
"Until today, we still do not have effective policies and laws in place to adequately integrate the rights of indigenous and local communities in our forestry management. Read More…
