FWD: NGO cries foul over plans to extract timber from Bakun

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This article is from thestar.com.my

URL:

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2002/8/30/nation/mrsalvage & sec=nation

 

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Friday, August 30, 2002

NGO cries foul over plans to extract timber from Bakun

By STEPHEN THEN

 

MIRI: An environmental watchdog has cried foul as loggers prepare to extract

timber from the 69,000ha of forest that will be submerged by the Bakun

hydroelectric dam project.

 

Construction for the project will begin soon.

 

Miri-based Borneo Resources Institute (Brimas) co-ordinator Raymond Abin said

more than 800 species of rare plants and animals were in danger of destruction.

 

“The Sarawak government and the developer of the Bakun project in Belaga

district must disclose to the public what they have done or intend to do to

salvage these endangered species.

 

“Based on our monitoring of the project over these eight years (during which

time it was shelved a few years ago and revived on a smaller scale recently),

there has never been any concrete action or plan from the government or the

developer on what they have done or will do to save these rare plants and

protected animals in Bakun that will be displaced by the project,” he said.

 

Brimas is a non-governmental organisation actively involved in environmental

and native community projects in Sabah and Sarawak.

 

On Tuesday, the Sarawak Timber Industry Development Corporation acting deputy

general manager Haji Rabani Taip disclosed that based on the original survey

conducted by the state authorities in Bakun, there was an estimated 15 million

cubic metres of logs within the affected 69,000ha of forest, an area equal in

size to Singapore.

 

The volume, he said, would be six million cubic metres more than the nine

million cubic metres of timber produced by Sarawak annually.

 

Last week, the Government named the Malaysia-China Hydro joint-venture

consortium led by a unit of Sime Darby Bhd, Sime Engineering Sdn Bhd, as the

contractor of the RM1.8bil main civil works of the RM9bil Bakun dam project.

 

The consortium has until early September 2007 to complete construction of the

dam after receiving the letter of intent from Sarawak Hidro Sdn Bhd.

 

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