NST Monday, April 16 2007

Letter to the editor from S.M. MOHAMED IDRIS for Sahabat Alam Malaysia

SAHABAT Alam Malaysia welcomes the call by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to state governments to protect and conserve water resources.

Since water-catchment forests and rivers fall within the jurisdiction of the states, it is critical that state government protect water catchments by gazetting them as water-catchment forests.

All states should follow the example of the Penang government in protecting the state’s water-catchment forests by gazetting them as such under the National Forestry Act and the Land Conservation Act. Following this, they should not be de-gazetted and should be protected in perpetuity.

Without such legal protection, water-catchment forests are under threat from being converted for timber and development. Merely recognising them as “forest reserves” or as “permanent forest estates” without specifying that they are to be permanently gazetted as “water-catchment forests” or “protection forests” subjects them to conversion for other purposes.

We urge the Prime Minister to make sure that state governments protect catchment forests without delay.