Professor Yeah Kim Leng, Professor and Senior Fellow at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia, Sunway University, Malaysia
The importance of forest resources in Malaysia is shaped by markets and influences related to institutions, policies, and practices, as well as the interactions between people and the environment. The evolution of forest management over more than a century provides rich insights into these dynamics, and how they have shaped the country's economy. This article provides a broad-brush narrative on four key themes of these evolving relations. The first focuses on approaches to colonial forest management and its legacy for Malaysia's forest sector. The second briefly examines the vital role that permanent reserved forests have had in ensuring economic sustainability. The third deals with the contribution of forest resources to the country's economy, especially for industrialization’s take-off. The final theme looks at broader development issues related to the ‘resource curse’ and sustainable forest management.
Development of Forestry During British Colonial Administration
Recognizing the Importance of Permanent Reserved Forests for Economic Sustainability
Even in the colonial era, forestry practices evolved in part owing to British foresters’ concerns over the destruction and overexploitation of tropical forests, while still cognizant of Britain’s needs to ‘become more or less self-sufficient in timber supplies and developing larger export markets for her tropical timbers’. 5
An enduring colonial legacy that created a necessary condition for sustainable forest management was the establishment of forest reserves where property rights of forest lands and control over its use are vested with the state, essentially turning natural forests into a ‘public good’. The forest laws modelled on the 1878 Indian Forest Act and the 1881 Burma Forest Act were promulgated in the Federated Malay States around 1907 and revised into a federal enactment in 1918, followed by the Unfederated Malay States (Cubitt, 1920, p. 10; Vandergeest and Peluso, 2006). These enactments legalized the demarcation and reservation of the natural forests, which covered more than 70 per cent of the country’s land area. By 1929, 22 per cent of the forests in the Federated Malay States had been designated permanent reserved forests (Federated Malay States, 1930).
The essence of forest reservation is captured by a forester’s remarks that ‘By forest reservation is meant the setting aside of areas for permanent maintenance under forest. Nothing short of permanency of tenure will secure the necessary continuity of management over long periods of time or justify expenditure on the demarcation, protection, and management of a forest’ (Troup, 1940, p. 117; Peluso and Vandergeest, 2001, pp. 780–781).
In exercising sovereignty and territorial control over the natural forests, the pioneering colonial foresters recognized that ‘producing a sustained yield of all classes of timber, of encouraging the most economical utilization of timber and other forest products, and of maintaining and improving climatic conditions in the interests of agriculture and water supply’ require proper policy, legislative, and administrative frameworks. These requirements were articulated in the First British Empire Forestry Conference held in Great Britain in 1920 and reiterated in subsequent conferences (The Malayan Forester, 1932, p. 225).
In the early 1900s, timber supplies were largely used to meet domestic needs such as railway sleepers, fuelwood, and timber for buildings and infrastructure in tin mines and on rubber estates. Large-scale timber extraction and exports were confined to only a few species such as ramin from Peninsular Malaysia and Sarawak, and ironwood (Eusideroxylon zwagerii) from Sabah. The bulk of the timber species, especially from the Dipterocarpeae (meranti) family, were commercialized and traded internationally only after the Second World War.
The extensive reservation of the natural forests led to a chief forest officer’s observation that ‘Thanks to a sound policy of forest reservation and conservation built up over the past half century Malaya now finds herself one of the few timber exporting countries in the world, and one of perhaps two British Colonial territories (the other being British North Borneo) capable of really significant expansion of timber production…. We were accused of grabbing all the best land in the country and constituting reserved forests far in excess of the area necessary to ensure an adequate supply of timber for local consumption’ (Edwards, 1947, p. 75).
While Malaysia possesses the necessary conditions to ensure that at least 50 per cent of the land area will remain under forest cover in perpetuity, the challenge for the current generation of professional foresters and policymakers is to optimize the development and use of forest resources in a holistic manner as encapsulated in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), balancing economic and market needs with environmental, social, and governance standards.
The future role of Malaysia’s forest sector in economic development therefore lies in harnessing both the timber and non-timber values of the natural forests, including eco-tourism, and integrating the management of the forests with the relevant SDGs. A Malaysian SDG Forest Sector Roadmap—to complement the global Forest Solutions Group’s equivalent of 2019—would be a welcome initiative for long-term planning, while also complementing the Strategic Plan of Action for ASEAN Co-operation in Forestry (2016–2025) and other multi-stakeholder global platforms.
3 The large timber trees in Malaysia’s forests are mainly from a single botanical family, Dipterocarpaceae, so named because the fruits have two wings (di = two; ptero = wing; carp = seed). Referred to as ‘dipterocarp forests’, they are found on dry land ranging from just above sea level to some 900 metres.
4 A Malaysian forester, Dr. Freezailah Che Yeom, was the founding executive director of the ITTO.
5 Per “The Colonial Forests and their Staffs,” reprinted in The Malayan Forester, vol. I, October 1932, p. 223.
6 Saw logs and sawn timber are classified as primary commodities under the agriculture, forestry, and fisheries sector. This separation in the classification of forestry products is one of the reasons for understated role and contribution of the forestry sector. Wood and paper products contributed 15.8 per cent to manufacturing growth in 1968–1973, although the share tapered off to 4.6 per cent in 1973–1978 (World Bank, 1981).
7 Computed using the annual average of the total estimates for 1966–1985 in 1980 prices reported in the study by Vincent (1990), and 1980 GDP in current prices published by Department of Statistics–Malaysia.