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.