KUCHING: Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg has called on more government agencies, non-governmental organisations and private bodies to continue to work together through smart partnership in promoting and marketing non-timber forest products (NTFP). “ This Non -Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Carnival Sarawak 2018 can be an important platform for delivering NTFPs, expanding collaborative networks and awareness to the general public especially those living in the city on the wealth of non-timber forest resources as well as the products produced,” he said when launching the Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Carnival Sarawak 2018 at the Kuching Waterfront here yesterday. Johari said: “NGOs and private bodies can play a role like helping the community in organising or identifying skills programmes and also bringing communities to the places that have succeeded in making NTFP a component that generates the local economy.”
The five-day carnival, participated by 40 booths, will last until Nov 26, and apart from exhibition and sale of NTFP products, there are also a number of other programmes such as entrepreneurship knowledge sharing by Mira Nur Agrofarm, The Voice of NTFP 2018, Health Programme, NTFP Kid’s Fashion Show Contest, NTFP Bernopeng Contest 2018, Lucky Draws, NTFP Musical Night 2018 which will feature renowned artistes, NTFP Kid’s Colouring Contest 2018 and performance by FORESSA Band. In a text of his speech read by Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan, the chief minister said the state was committed to preserving its forest resources for the present and future generations by gazetting forest areas as a permanent forest estates and fully protected areas.
The state government, he said, had targeted to establish one million hectares of land as fully protected areas and to date 803,042.40 hectares had already been gazetted as fully protected areas. He said the state government also wanted to implement the Heart of Borneo initiative in an area of 2.7mil hectares for sustainable development and conservation of forest resources. In the 2019 Budget tabled recently, he said the state government had allocated a total of RM9.073bil for development. Of the total, RM6.049bil or 67% is for the purpose of rural development to increase as well as build basic infrastructure.
“This is aimed at giving access to the rural community to enable them to market their products,” he said and hoped that the government’s focus to develop rural areas will be capitalised by the community and the related agencies to develop NTFP. He added the government’s strategy was also in line with the digital economy that involved expanding the coverage to rural areas to support NTFP e-marketing. “The initiative to upgrade the network up to 100 megabytes per second in urban areas and from 20 up to 80mbps in rural areas will be implemented within three years,” he said.
