The Forestry Department was only formed in 1914 despite having been proposed as early as 1883. The laws on forestry were modified in 1916 with the introduction of Ordinance No. 11 of 1916 'Timber and Jungle Produce' which defined for the first time the idea of 'forest reserve'.
The first forest reserve in Sabah was Tuaran Timber Reserve which was gazetted 6/4/1920. (The oldest existing forest reserve is the Gomantong FR in the Lower Kinabatangan Floodplain. It was gazetted on 1st Oct 1925). By 1930, there were about 30,066.8 ha of forest reserves and communal forests, approximately 0.37% of the total area of Sabah. During those times, the main purposes to gazette forest reserves were mainly for:
protection from timber exploitation,
preservation of natural forest types (for e.g. mangroves),
protection against soil erosion, and
water catchments.
Forests intended for timber extraction (including mangroves) were called 'licensed areas'. After the Second World War, the first steps were taken towards a complete forest inventory and forest classification. In 1948, the Forest Policy, an improvement to the Forest Ordinance of 1936, was officially accepted by the Government. By 1949, forest reserves were internally (i.e. within the Forestry Department) classified into 4 classes of forest reserves, namely Class 1 (Protection), Class 2 (Commercial), Class 3 (Domestic) and Class 4 (Amenity).
Thus, licensed areas or concessions were also regarded as forest reserves although internally classified as commercial production forests.
In the 1950s, forest inventory using interpretation of aerial photographs began. This was in preparation for a statewide forest inventory which started in 1969 and was completed in 1972. However, during this time (1950s--pre-1972), the increasing use of remote sensing led to better planning of access routes to timber resources. It was during this time that logging became mechanised with the use of chainsaws and tractors. These technologies resulted in a rapid pace of de-reservation of the gazetted, preliminary notified and proposed forest reserves. Similarly, due to the internal classification scheme, forest reserve classes were changed just as rapidly, for e.g. from Class 1 to Class 2 (for timber extraction).
With the completion of a statewide forest inventory in 1972. The inventory maps produced clearly showed--for the first time--the availability of timber resources throughout the state. Inadvertently, these 'treasure' maps proved to be the catalyst for the timber industry, leading to rapid rate of logging that in 1979, the royalties collected from the timber industry amounted to some RM1.1 billion. Meanwhile, the rapid pace of de-reservation of forest reserves continued and was almost routine in the 1970s and early 1980s that the Forestry Department proposed to put a halt to this. A new set of forest reserves was needed together with amendments to certain clauses of the Forest Enactment to ensure that there would be no further unnecessary de-reservation of constituted forest reserves.
Thus, in 14/3/1984, the Government, in an unprecedented move breaking over 30 years of tradition, regazetted all existing forest reserves--and gazetted new ones--to include classes of forest. This meant that even the classes of forest reserves were constituted (for e.g. 'Silabukan Forest Reserve' became 'Silabukan Forest Reserve, Class 1 Protection Forest').
This excellent progress meant that forest reserves could not be reclassified within the forestry department anymore. Any changes to the classification of forest reserves after 1984, especially changes to Class 2 Commercial forest reserves, had to obtain the approval of the State Cabinet and the Governor of Sabah. Obviously, this process is very time-consuming and, indeed up to the present, has dissuaded attempts for reclassification.
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