(MY) Kemasul reserve

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No serious damage to Kemasul reserve _ The New Straits Times

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KUANTAN, May 22. — State Forestry Director Datuk Mokhtar Mat Isa said there

was no serious damage to the Kemasul forest reserve in Temerloh despite the

illegal extraction of logs.

 

He said the illegal extraction did not involve the clearing of a huge area

" as the operations were selective " .

 

Initial investigation, he said, showed that the logging had taken place

since Saturday.

 

" The illegal loggers had entered the area and marked the trees that they

wanted to fell, " he said.

 

He added that it took them two days to cut the trees and the logs were

placed in one area before being transported out of the reserve.

 

Asked about the total area involved, Mokhtar said forestry officers were

still assessing the affected area.

 

" However, our initial report shows that the area damaged is small as the

loggers were very selective and took only trees which were of value to

them, " he said.

 

Meanwhile, Temerloh Criminal Investigation Department Chief Assistant

Superintendent P.R. Gunarajan, who is also the senior investigation officer

of the case, said the syndicate had planned their illegal operations well.

 

" A visit to the site proved this as the logging was done systematically to

prevent detection by the authorities.

 

" They used the oil palm plantation road to get access into the reserve

before using a vacant area as a collection centre, " he said.

 

He added that the oil palm path is about three kilometres long while the

path made by the suspects is about the same distance into the reserve.

 

From the collection centre, Gunarajan said the workers made their way into

the reserve through paths made by bulldozers.

 

" After making the path, the workers select the trees for felling. All the

felled trees were near access paths.

 

" The logs are then collected in the cleared area, " he said.

 

Another path is made to cut down other selected trees. Once a path is used,

it is closed using logs.

 

 

 

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