Joseph Sipalan, The New Straits Times 12 Sep 09;
KUALA LUMPUR: Any environmentalist here will tell you that the Ulu Muda forest reserve is an important bastion of ecological wonder, one of the last largely untouched forests in Peninsular Malaysia.
But in reality, most Malaysians will probably have little chance of seeing for themselves the grandeur of the centuries-old forest.
The World Wide Fund for Nature Malaysia calls the 160,000ha Ulu Muda a treasure of national importance, as it feeds water to rice production areas in Seberang Prai, Perlis and, most importantly, Kedah, the country's rice bowl state.
And because forests act as natural sponges to retain water, Ulu Muda continues to provide the life-giving resource, said the WWF chief technical officer for Peninsular Malaysia, Surin Suksuwan.
He said without the trees, the area could not retain water to feed Kedah's padi fields, which meant bad yields for farmers and shaky food security for the country.
Water Watch Penang president Prof Chan Ngai Weng added that no trees meant siltation, which ill pollute the island state's drinking water.
Considering that 80 per cent of Penang's water is sourced from Ulu Muda, this means more work and higher cost to churn out clean water for the consumer, who will end up paying for it all.
And if plans to clear the forest are on, Surin contends that the ringgit and sen of the entire exercise would be hard to justify. Citing a study WWF Malaysia did in 2002, he said the figures did not amount to very much.
The study estimated earnings from a 10-year concession to heli-log areas in Ulu Muda to be RM53 million.
Minus from that would be payments by way of premiums, loyalty and timber cess to the state government, which would hit RM26 million.
On the flip side, the state can earn an average RM187 million annually from domestic water supply, plus RM5 million from irrigation.
And if water is converted to rice production, the value shoots up to RM622 million, said the report.
But none of this information will help address the reason why the Kedah government plans to log the area -- the lack of state funds.
"The ultimate goal is to get the authorities to declare Ulu Muda as a protected area, but there must be an alternative for the state government to raise funds," Surin said.
He said a few options were put on the table for stakeholders to consider, such as a natural resource levy for consumers and industries that source water from the area, or even an Ulu Muda Trust Fund to help cover the state's administration costs.
Surin said the Federal Government also had a key role to play, especially in seriously considering the RM100 million annual compensation to Kedah to forget about logging.
"Some of these ideas are not new. Some were mooted in the 1980s, some even as far back as the 1970s.
"There have been many reports over the years and they keep piling up but there is a lack of political will to implement these ideas.
"The solution to Ulu Muda's status goes all the way up to the state authorities ... if the government puts its mind to it, it can be done," said Surin.
(The Ulu Muda trip was made possible by WWF Malaysia, Malaysian Nature Society, Sahabat Alam Malaysia, Malaysian Karst Society, Water Watch Penang and Rohani Rahmani of Ronn's Adventures.)
'If they cut the trees, it would be a shame'
The New Straits Times 12 Sep 09;
SIK: Rahim takes a drag off his rokok daun, sitting cross-legged and leaning back on his free arm as he relaxes after a hard day's trekking.
As he exhales, a whimsical smile bares his tobacco-stained teeth as he speaks his reverence for the place where a group of "city folk" are spending a few nights.
"It always has something to give us," he says before he pulls another long puff while rolling his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger to get an even burn.
The wilds of Ulu Muda, he explains, have given villagers in and around the forest's great expanse many treasures that have kept them going for generations.
Water to sustain their padi fields, abundant fish in its surrounding lakes and rivers, and wild honey, while dangerous to harvest, is lucrative when in season.
But Rahim's optimism to keep his relationship with the forest alive is slowly fading.
He fears that he and the other locals in the area, will slowly -- in the name of development -- disappear.
While the area at large still retains virgin forest cover, parts of Ulu Muda have been scarred by extensive logging from the 1960s to 1980s and even now under much smaller concession areas.
After a two-decade reprieve from large-scale intrusion of logging trucks and buzzing chainsaws several feet long, the threat reared its head again twice in the new millennium.
The first was in 2002, when then Kedah menteri besar Datuk Seri Syed Razak Syed Zain led the state government into a partnership with a private timber company to carry out heli-logging, using helicopters to transport felled logs .
The state thought it a more "environmentally-friendly" approach.
But the plan was scrapped a year later as the Environmental Impact Assessment report was deemed incomplete.
The latest attempt was last year, when Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak announced that the state was going to "carefully" handle their logging project, which he said would not affect the environment.
On both counts, the underlying reason behind the logging plans was because the state did not have the money to run the government, let alone develop Kedah.
Rahim says the villagers are not averse to progress, with electricity and potable water, and machines like the pump-boat engines they use for fishing, and ferrying the rare tourist, a godsend that makes their lives all the more easier.
"If they come in and cut the trees, it would be a shame. We've been doing this for so long, and it would just disappear," Rahim says.
