KL under fire at environment talks

KL under fire at environment talks

Agence France-Presse, Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia, which is hosting thousands of delegates to a major
international conference on the environment, has found itself the
target of strong criticism over illegal logging.

The conservation group Greenpeace, in a document made
available on the sidelines of the conference on Wednesday,
accused Malaysia of "destructive forestry and corrupt land rights
policies" often backed by "political nepotism".

And the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)
announced that it would on Thursday release a report providing
evidence of complicity by Malaysian officials in the illegal
trade in ramin, an endangered Indonesian tree species.

The EIA said a coalition of United States environmental groups
will present a letter to the conference urging Washington to
impose trade sanctions on Malaysia unless the government "takes
immediate measures to stop the trade in ramin".

It says the report to be issued on Thursday, Profiting from
Plunder, is the culmination of two years of investigations and
research by EIA and Indonesia non-governmental organization
Telapak, its partner.

The report details how timber is allegedly smuggled from
Indonesia into Malaysia where it is made into furniture for
export with false documentation.

But the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta doubted the validity of
EIA-Telapak report and asked for evidence on illegal logging and
the involvement of Malaysian citizens.

Malaysia had imposed a ban on the importation of logs and
square logs from Indonesia in 2002 at the request of Indonesia,
which had also banned the export of logs.

The report may gain maximum exposure at the conference of
parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which
has drawn some 2,000 government officials, scientists and
activists to the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.

The CBD aims to protect the diversity of life on earth, where
thousands of animal and plant species face extinction, mainly
from human economic development.

Malaysia's environment minister Law Hieng Ding took over the
presidency at the start of the conference on Monday from Hans
Hoogeven of the Netherlands.

The Greenpeace document noted that the Malaysian government is
highly sensitive to criticism of its forestry and land rights
policies.

"Perhaps much of this has to do with the fact that many, if
not most, of Malaysia's listed and unlisted logging and timber
groups are connected to the government or otherwise owned by
politicians or their families," it said.

Greenpeace said Malaysia was a signatory to the Cancun
Declaration which promotes biodiversity conservation but its
natural resources policies contravene the declaration.

"To feed logs to its unsustainable timber industry, Malaysia
has already sacrificed most of its ancient rain forests for
logging."

The organization said Malaysia is particularly important in
global conservation efforts as the tropical Southeast Asian
nation ranks 14th on the list of the 17 "mega-diverse" countries
containing around 70 percent of earth's biodiversity.

Its forests support a huge variety of wildlife, including
tiger, elephant, orangutan and rhino.