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Extracted from Malaysiakini
Timber council ‘protects market, not people’
Tony Thien
The Malaysian Timber Certification
Council (MTCC) appears more interested in securing a market for local wood
products than to promote social and environmental justice, claimed a
In July 2001, 14 environmental and
forest-dependent community groups had pulled out from the MTCC process “because
of the failure of the body to fully recognise and protect the customary land
rights, tenures and user-rights of indigenous communities to their forests”.
“These issues had been
communicated to MTCC on numerous occasions by the groups,” he told a public
hearing conducted by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Integrity in Kuching
last Friday.
Baru said the same groups had
highlighted a fundamental problem in the implementation of the Forest
Management Units (FMUs) certification scheme.
In
“Therefore, the MTCC process is
clearly unable to provide for the protection of the rights and privileges of
the local communities,” Baru said.
In 2002, the MTCC developed a set
of new standards to be used in its certification process. Although this is much
more detailed, he said, the legal implications on extinguishment of the NCR in
the FMU remains unresolved.
The MTCC is also “aggressively
marketing its new certification standards as being compatible with those of the
Forest Stewardship Council, a move which is legally questionable”, Baru
alleged.
A related problem involves the
“limited and informal” participation of local communities in forest management.
“Instead of instituting legal
amendments to increase the areas which are protected from the forest industry,
changes have been made to limit the rights of the local communities to their
forests,” he said.
In addition, the environmental
impact assessment legislation does not adequately protect water catchment areas
from being logged.
“Equally important, the timber
licensing process continues to be politicised by those in power. All these
developments are in direct contradiction to the recommendations of the
International Timber Trade Organisation,” he added.
Millions of hectares of forest
have been licensed to large companies in