The state government of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo has reaffirmed its plans to proceed with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations. Representatives of Sabah’s government and a representative of a Singaporean company called Hoch Standard Pte. Ltd. signed the agreement, which included the rights to carbon and other marketable ecosystem services from more than half of the state of Sabah’s forests, in secret on Oct. 28, 2021. As news of the deal broke in early November 2021, questions arose as to whether the state’s Indigenous peoples, who collectively account for more than half its population, had been adequately informed about the agreement’s plans for 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) of Sabah’s forests. Hundreds of thousands of the state’s Indigenous people live in or around forest reserves and rely on them for their livelihoods. Since the agreement’s signing, Sabah’s attorney general has called the agreement “legally impotent,” and more recently, a legal adviser to the state said it violates a 2000 law meant to protect Sabah’s biodiversity. The state asserted that it intends to proceed with the agreement in a formal response to a December 2023 letter from the United Nations. The 11-page letter was written by a group of “special procedures experts” with mandates established by the U.N. Human Rights Council, including the special rapporteurs on the rights of Indigenous peoples, on human rights and the environment, and on the right to development. It cites the lack of transparency around the agreement and…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The post UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo appeared first on EnviroLink Network.