KUCHING, May 19 — Bawang Assan State Assemblyman Datuk Seri Wong Soon Koh today reminded the state government to take cultural and historical character of Sarawak’s forests and land into account when creating amenity forests and as making changes to existing forests and land.

He said land and forests issues have been thorny, if not sensitive, issues among the native communities, especially those touching on Native Customary Rights (NCR) lands with many outstanding issues remaining unresolved in the Courts.

"We sincerely hope that these amendments affecting both land and forests will go a long way to mitigate, if not resolve these contentious issues and pray that they are a not a case of putting the cart before the horse or alternatively, trying to lock the stable doors after the horses had bolted,” he said during the debate on the Forests (Amendment) Bill 2022 in the State Assembly.

The Bill was tabled by Deputy Premier and Minister of Natural Resources and Urban Development Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan.

Wong, who is also Parti Sarawak Bersatu (PSB) president, said as much as 20 per cent of state land in Sarawak is classified as NCR and, but only a small percentage of this land has actually been surveyed and titled.

He also expressed his concern that Sarawak tops the nation in terms of "primary forest loss” with 1.60 million hectares out of its total primary forest cover of 7.46 million hectares for the period 2001-2020, according to Malaysia’s annual forest and tree cover data.

"Main ‘contributors’ to the primary forest and tree cover’ loss include, among others, Belaga (345,000ha), Marudi (237,000ha), Bintulu (148,000ha), Tatau (147,000ha), Kapit (127,000ha) and Mukah (81,000ha).

"This is obviously something pertinent for our state government to look into with urgency, as these are ‘coincidentally’, located in ‘government-controlled strongholds,” he said.

In giving his support to the Forests (Amendment) Bill and the Sarawak Land Code (Amendment), which were passed yesterday, Wong believed that these two Bills are introduced to further ‘iron-clad’ the state constitution.

He said they are also to tie up the loose ends on matters pertaining to the protection of the forest and land and put Sarawak on a more concrete footing in relation to the state government’s pursuits of restoring and protecting Sarawak’s rights and interests as enshrined in Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).

PSB’s Batu Lintang assemblyman See Chee How urged Awang Tengah to inform the assembly on the extent or magnitude of Sarawak’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) up to the year 2030 and what are the plans and programmes to fulfil the ambition to cut down our greenhouse gas emissions.

"How are we to assist and support and thus incentivize the private sectors to invest in climate-friendly solutions, to thereby making it our collective responsibility for sustainable living for ourselves, Sarawak and the Mother Earth,” he said.

He said the term "nationally determined contribution” (NDC) included in the proposed section 70B of the proposed New Chapter 6 of Part IV of the Forests Ordinance 2015, is actually of the most significant because the Paris Agreement works on a five-year cycle of increasingly ambitious climate action carried out by countries.

He said every five years, each country is expected to submit an updated national climate action plan.

"In their NDCs, countries communicate actions they will take to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in order to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement,” he said, adding they also communicate in the NDC the actions they will take to build resilience to adapt to the impacts of rising temperatures.

"Because it is mandatory and of most significance, 7 out of the 29 Articles on the Paris Agreement, that is, Articles 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 13 are on "nationally determined contributions to the global response to climate change”, he said. See, who is also an environmental activist, said also asked the minister to state Malaysia’s commitments under the national NDC and which, if any, affected Sarawak.