The 'green gold' of Sabah: timber politics and resource sustainability

© 2000 Dr. Teresa Maria ChalaThis study examines the role of forest resources in Sabah's post-colonial era of rapid economic growth and power formation. A detailed examination of the condition of forests in Sabah has established that disturbance levels are high and are widespread across most forest reserves. This thesis identifies the interplay of factors, particularly political, impinging upon forest sustainability and causing the level of damage apparent in Sabah's forests. The complex political culture in Sabah that underlies poor forest management has resulted from both State and federal influences. At the federal level, national policies have positioned forests as expendable to meet goals of agricultural development, industrialisation and national integration. At the State level, forests are critical to political survival and state autonomy. A political culture developed that focused heavily on timber for direct state revenue and patronage purposes. Thus the State has given priority to those aspects of commercial forestry that raise the greatest direct revenue: log exports and low-level timber processing. The combined effect of these processes is the high levels of forest loss and damage evident in Sabah today. The thesis also explores how land conversions and timber processing encourage unsustainable forest management. There is a lack of integration between forest management and related activities of large-scale commercial land development and timber processing. These activities were put in place by national development policies, but their application has been shaped by political interference at State and federal levels. The politicisation of forestry and timber revenue has led to an industrial productive capacity far in excess of the forest capacity and the development of industries unsuitable to the needs of a recovering forest and sustainability. National land development policies have also undermined forestry as a land use. Priority is given to the conversion of forests to agricultural plantations. As a result, forestry as a land use is devalued, leaving forests unable to compete with agricultural options. The neglect of forestry as a use of stateland has placed pressure for timber supply totally onto forest reserves. The thesis explores the tensions that exist between economic and ecological solutions after a forest is heavily disturbed, an important issue in Sabah as most forests are in a poor condition after logging. In the forest reserves, high levels of damage have left many areas vulnerable to conversion to Industrial Tree Plantations. Political pressures and interference have affected all aspects of forest management ranging in Sabah from the implementation of policy, to integration of forests with industry and land development planning and to development options chosen after forests are exploited. The thesis explores how political constraints have shaped the capacity to manage forests and the implications for forest sustainability when management capacity has been impaired. A culture has developed linking timber to political office. This culture underpins excessive forest exploitation and undermines strategies for secure and long-term tenure in sustainable forest management