Malaysia has committed to protect 50% of its natural forests but deforestation is posing a serious threat to around 3.2 million hectares of its rainforests, a report released Tuesday has found.

The State of the Malaysian Rainforest 2024 report by RimbaWatch found that around 16% of the country’s remaining forest cover is at risk due to increasing deforestation.

The report supplements the general findings of the original State of the Malaysian Rainforest 2023 study, which identified timber plantations and oil palm as the primary threats to natural forests.

While timber plantations represented more than 76% of total threats to forests, the majority of these concessions were located in intact forests.

Some of the other threats included hydropower projects and downgrading of the protection status of the forest reserves, the report added.

The trend puts at risk Malaysia’s commitments under the Paris Agreement as well as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

FINDINGS

The report used three baselines to predict a future reduction in forest cover, and found that the forest cover will drop below 50% in all three baselines, ranging between 40-49%.

“In particular, the Gaveau dataset estimates that forest cover has already fallen below 50%, and stands at 46.97% as of 2022,” the report said.

It added that Malaysia’s officially reported number of 54.81% forest coverage sits between two baselines, but that the lack of geospatial data supporting this statistic limits further analysis.

According to the authorities in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak, and Sabah, timber plantations are a method of rehabilitating degraded forests which reduces pressure on natural forests, which they often refer to as “planted forests” and “forest farms”.

However, the report found that more than 1.5 mln ha of timber plantation concessions are located in intact forests that are not degraded. The majority of those plantations are in Sarawak, followed by Kelantan.

As well, the report reiterated the problem of encroachments of the traditional territories of Indigenous communities.

It also said that conversion of forests will drive significant carbon emissions and that data on forests continues to be non-transparent.

“The majority of future deforestation will be unreported as such by Malaysian authorities due to loopholes in definitions,” it said.

WE’LL GET BACK TO YOU

Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said that the ministry will look into the RimbaWatch report closely.

At an event on Tuesday, Nik Ahmad said the Southeast Asian nation pledged to maintain at least 50% of its land mass under forest and tree cover during the Earth Summit in 1992.

“Right now, the forest cover is at 54.58%. We know that there are challenges in some spots, but I think we are working very hard to protect that and we will go through the report seriously,” Nik Ahmad was reported as saying.

“Let us go through the report to verify what they’ve highlighted and we will respond to it soon,” he added, according to New Straits Times.

By Nikita Pandey – nikita@carbon-pulse.com