Kuching, Wednesday, 26 January 2011 – Forest Department Sarawak (FDS), SARAWAK FORESTRY Corporation (SFC) and Zedtee Sdn Bhd. (Zedtee) signed an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today, marking a new relationship and undertaking among the signatories in attempt to implement pilot projects for the Innovative Rainforest Conservation and Management in Sarawak at Anap Sustainable Development Unit (ASDU).

Datu Haji Len Talif Salleh, Deputy Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Planning and Resource Management, regarded the MOU as a great leap for the FMUs and the public and believes that many great things will derive from this establishment. He said, “The economic, social and environmental demands and needs are crucial to the State and its public and with this collaborative approach, added with diligently designed pilot projects, will provide much-needed impetus towards meeting expectations in terms of conservation, landscape restoration and community development.” He added “As pioneers, I hope that all lessons and outcomes from the pilot projects will be disseminated to other FMUs so that they can also benefit from our experience. “

The MoU targets to establish a properly defined set of roles and responsibilities in the Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) which is the forest management model intended to provide a framework for meeting social forestry and community development expectations. This collaborative effort will strengthen the efforts of the Innovative Rainforest Conservation and Management by engaging the local community in forest management, productive land use and alternative livelihood for sustainable enterprise development. In addition to the enhancement of biodiversity through conservation and preservation, the innovative initiatives include activities and programmes such as Forest Management Certification, Forest Landscape Restoration and Model Intergrated Management Project.

The agreement between the State Government and ZedTee Sdn Bhd distinguishes ZedTee as the undertaking party of that will manage ASDU and conduct research experimentation to implement the Innovative Rainforest Conservation initiatives. Their functions will generally include; the protection of ASDU from illegal logging and settlement, surveillances, logistic reports, developments, activities, research drafted by Forest Department and SFC, as well as extensions with other forest managers in Sarawak.

Len Talif, who is also the Director of Forests and Manging Director / CEO of SARAWAK FORESTRY, said, “All these mechanics are leading towards the concept of Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) which I fully support and I am prepared to commit the resources of Forest Department and SFC to the proposed collaboration as I see a great potential in this initiative and hope that we can all benefit the best out of this collaboration.” 

SARAWAK FORESTRY has a clear vision of its objectives in this collaborative effort and targets to promote Innovative Rainforest Conservation and Management in Sarawak to the world and at the same time adopt ASDU as the pilot site for eventual adoption by other Forest Management Unit (FMU) managers and Licenses for Planted Forests (LPF) operators.

In addressing the public about the importance of the MoU, Len Talif reiterated his commends for ZedTee on their proactive efforts in rainforest conservation and encourages other FMUs as well as other parties such as the stakeholders and the public to learn from ZedTee’s accomplishments and take the initiative to come forward with new ideas and strategies to enhance our efforts in forest management and conservation as a whole.

A Sustainable Development Unit (SDU) is a new forest management model based on broad Sustainable Forest Management principles as well as local needs and conditions to meet various stakeholder expectations, particularly those of social and environmental nature. Key attributes of this model include:

• Local community participation in forest management
• Structured multi-stakeholder collaboration and decision making
• Creation of a multiple land-use landscape as an extension to the Forest Management Unit (FMU)
• Development of sustainable community-based enterprises
• Restoration of degraded forest areas in conjunction with development of alternative livelihoods

ASDU is the successor of the ITTO Model Forest Management Area (MFMA) implemented in Sarawak during 1993-2006.  ASDU was certified for sustainable forest management under MC&I 2002 in 2008.  It covers an area of about 106,820 ha in the Tatau District of Bintulu Division, consisting mainly of lowl land and hill mixed-dipterocarp forest.  It comprises Anap-Muput Forest Management of 83,535 ha and Planted Forest area of 23,285 ha, which includes two parcels of state land.

The main activities designated under the MOU are:

• Sustainable forest management of natural forest
• Multiple land-use planted forest
• High conservation value forest

These activities can be further categorised under the themes:

• Forest Management Certification
• Forest Landscape Restoration (FLRI)