Officials from the state Forest Department confiscated 869 illegal logs during a sting at a sawmill here recently, marking another successful operation in its bid to curb timber smuggling activities. Led by its director Sapuan Ahmad, the operation involving 15 enforcement officers, conducted checks at three sawmills in Demak Laut, Sejingkat and Bintawa industrial areas.
“The department will not compromise on this matter, serious actions will be taken if any sawmill operators are found to be conspiring in the running of illegal logging activities. “We will continue to carry out our surveillance ops from time to time in order to eradicate the smuggling of timber logs to sawmills throughout the state,” Sapuan warned sawmill operators in a statement received here yesterday.
“Drastic action has to be taken to ensure the conservation of the Sarawak forest for the benefit of future generations. This also ensures that there is no leakage to the government’s revenue,” he said.
Did someone at these particular saw mills not pay the right bribes or do we just have a rogue enforcer, who is actually trying to implement the law in Sarawak?
There are hundreds of illegal native land grabs currently taking place and millions of hectares of rainforest have been unlawfully handed out in return for bribes, under land grab laws banned by the Federal Court.
All of this has been sponsored by the state government, so why is it now highlighting this raid involving just 870 ‘illegal’ logs?
Plain and simple. This is a rather obvious PR stunt designed to be put in front of foreign observers, in order to give a good impression about Sarawak’s ‘enforcement’ activities.
It is too little and far too late, since Sarawak’s reputation as a rogue logging regime cannot be undone while the present operators are still in power.
It is a known fact that current BN politicians and crony timber companies have received vast timber concessions in Native Customary Rights Land areas of Sarawak.
If the Malaysian Government really cared about taking drastic action to “conserve the forest for the future generations” they should have moved against chief logging thief Governor Abdul Taib Mahmud a very long time ago!