With an internationally backed project to protect core forest in Malaysia’s Sarawak state now quashed at the request of the state’s forest department, both NGOs and Sarawak forestry officials cite difficulties working together on what was pitched as a collaborative project. The project, one of two operated in the region by the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), aimed to protect 283,500 hectares (about 700,500 acres) of land in the Upper Baram Forest Area, an area encompassing 79,000 hectares (about 195,000 acres) of primary forest as well as more than 20 villages of four different Indigenous ethnicities. Its $1.3 million budget would have been primarily supported by the Malaysian government, with the remaining $556,885 coming from the government of Japan, the Bruno Manser Fonds (BMF), a Swiss NGO, and the government of the Swiss canton of Basel. The Sarawak government told the ITTO that it would “endeavour to seek alternative funding to complete the implementation of this project,” said ITTO executive director Sheam Satkuru. There’s still one active ITTO project in the Upper Baram Forest Area supporting forest management training and landscape restoration, but that project, valued at $479,500, is scheduled to end in November, Satkuru said. Rainforest in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. A new timber concession A key point of contention between the government and NGOs is the existence of an active timber concession within the Upper Baram Forest Area (UBFA). Sarawak officials say planning for the ITTO project always accounted for the existence of this…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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