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Return your licence if you are not up to it: Hamden

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Hamden Mohammad

KUCHING: Planted forests and forest timber licensees who are unable to operate due to changes in current forestry policies have been told to surrender their licences.

State Forest director Hamden Mohammad said they could surrender the licensed areas as the government had other interested parties ready and willing to take over.

He pointed out that the implementation of planted forests (LPF) was to help reduce the pressure on the natural forests.

Hamden Mohammad

He said for the past 20 years, the planting rate had not been “very encouraging” although the government had provided incentives to the licensees by allowing some parts of the area to be planted with one cycle of oil palm.

According to Hamden, one interesting point to note was that the planting of oil palm over LPF area was very successful.

He said oil palm planted in these areas did not face such issues as manpower shortage, land-related problems or research and development (R&D).

Hamden said R&D was not merely the responsibility of the government but a collective effort by all stakeholders.

He said all this while the state’s timber industry was still focusing on producing primary products such as sawn timber and plywood.

He said there was a need to transform structurally towards higher value-added products.

“The industry players must align themselves to the external changes and must be ready to adopt new ways of doing things and the usage of latest technology.

“They must use the right technology to produce suitable and new products with quality acceptable in the global market place. Technology can also shift the industry from labour intensive sector to automated manufacturing,” he added.

Hamden said the industry players should cooperate with the government in implementing policies, not only to strengthen forest management and environmental protection but to accelerate the development of timber-based industries to a higher level.

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