on kalabakan pulp and paper mill

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The Star - Thursday, April 18, 2002

CM: Sabah can't back out of logging pacts

 

KOTA KINABALU: Logging operations will proceed in the ecologically rich region

of Kalabakan even if a proposed RM4.56bil pulp and paper mill project is called

off or relocated, Chief Minister Datuk Chong Kah Kiat said yesterday.

He said the state government could not back out from the " tightly sealed "

agreements that it signed with 18 companies to log the 140,000ha of forests that

had been repeatedly harvested for about 40 years.

 

" Anyway, we still need logging for revenue, " he added.

 

Chong said the Sabah government could only strictly enforce conditions in the

environmental impact assessment (EIA) for logging operations.

 

He said Sabah authorities could not apply the state's Conservation and Wildlife

Enactment to stop logging in Kalabakan unlike at the Kinabatangan region where

logging at three parcels of privately owned land had been ordered to be halted.

 

Last week, former chief minister Datuk Yong Teck Lee questioned the

justification in allowing the Kalabakan logging to continue if the project

failed to materialise.

 

Stating that the Kalabakan logging should be suspended, Yong said the Sabah

government had allowed the operations in the name of the pulp and paper mill

project that was now in doubt.

 

Yesterday, Chong said the state Cabinet had ordered a stop in logging operations

at 88.8ha of private land near the Danau Bilit ox-bow lake and two tracts of

land totalling 23ha along the Kinabatangan River near Sandakan.

 

He said the parcels of land were adjacent to the 10,000ha Kinabatangan wildlife

conservation area.

 

Chong said the Sabah government was moving towards turning the fractured

conservation area known for its proboscis monkeys, elephants and orang-utans

into one continuous zone.