Malaysia’s Forest Pledges and The Bornean State of Sarawak: A Policy Perspective

Jane Koh (), Shazali Johari, Ahmad Shuib, May Ling Siow and Nitanan Koshy Matthew
Additional contact information
Jane Koh: Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Shazali Johari: Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Ahmad Shuib: School of Business and Economics, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
May Ling Siow: Faculty of Design and Architecture, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia
Nitanan Koshy Matthew: Faculty of Forestry and Environment, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang 43400, Malaysia

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: Malaysia deforested 6.3 million hectares since independence; 91% of which occurred before Malaysia pledged, at the Earth Summit in 1992, to maintain a minimum 50% of its terrestrial area under forest cover. However, under economic and population pressure, Sarawak—the largest contributing state to the country’s current forest cover of 54.8%—shows continuing deforestation even after 1992. This paper reviews land use policies underpinned by economic development and environmental protection considerations, land rights issues that complicate land use planning, and legislation that regulates land use change. The objective is to investigate the adequacy of existing policies and legislation in governing forest cover in Sarawak and to recommend improvement measures. If the Sarawak Land Use Policy that allocates seven million hectares for forest is realized, Malaysia’s forest cover would drop to 53%, assuming other states maintain their forests. It is recommended that legislation governing the designation of permanent forest and conversion of forest for other land use to be strengthened, civil society to be enlisted to enhance knowledge level, and carbon credit production to be promoted as alternative land use that keeps forests standing. With these measures, it is hopeful that Malaysia’s aspirations regarding forest cover can be achieved.

Keywords: Sarawak; deforestation; agriculture expansion; policies; land rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1385/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/2/1385/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:2:p:1385-:d:1032282

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().