EU Flegt

Illegal Logging has a devastating impact on some of the world’s most valuable forests. It can have not only serious environmental, but also economic and social consequences. Europe’s response to the problem is reflected in the FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade) Action Plan of the European Union. The EU FLEGT Action Plan provides a number of measures to exclude illegal timber from markets, to improve the supply of legal timber and to increase the demand for responsible wood products. We expect the risk management to be minimized due to the fact that we purchase only from suppliers with own forest concessions. Read more

TSL Timber Sdn Bhd

TSL TIMBER SDN BHD, established in 1994 by mr. Lau Tiam Siah is one of the leading sawmills in Malaysia, specialized in Meranti for the European, Middle-East and Malaysian timber market. With an annual turnover of approximately 7,000 tons of sawntimber TSL TIMBER is aware of the importance of sustainable forest management. That's why TSL TIMBER is fully committed to the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification ( PEFC ) Mr. Lau has been active more than 35 years in the Malaysian timber business. We sell our timber to either Malaysian timber exporters and producers or via Greenwood International, which is our European representative.

Seized timber to go under hammer

THE Johor Forestry Department will auction off 27 timber logs seized in the Sembrong dam forest in February as no one has come forward to claim the logs. The timber logs of the Meranti species, each measuring 4.8m long, were seized along with 50 logs of the acacia tree and 110 logs of the tual tree were illegally harvested. They are worth a total of RM23,000, but none has been claimed since February. Department director Yahaya Mohamood said a report on the illegally harvested timber would be forwarded to the Deputy Public Prosecutor's office to allow the department to claim possession of the logs  "Nobody has come to claim the timber after we sealed the area.
"But only 27 timber logs are in good condition. The others have decayed," he said. Yahaya said the department had intensified monitoring of the forest following cases of illegal lumbering activities. "So far, illegal lumbering in the forest area is under control. We hope nearby villagers will become our ears and eyes and help us to guard the forest, as it is too big for us to fully monitor at all times," he said.

Dry season brings Sarawak fear of forest fires

KUCHING: Drought is expected to hit Sarawak from this month until September with an average of 20% to 40% rainfall expected.Second Minister Resource Management and Environment Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said the average monthly rainfall deemed normal for the state was between 200mm to 300mm. “For Bintulu and Mukah, the hot and dry weather is forecast to be even more severe with average rainfall expected to be 40% to 60% below the normal amount. “This kind of weather could cause more forest fires especially in peat areas,” he told the State Legislative Assembly yesterday. To control smoke haze, he said the Government through the Natural Resources and Environment Board (NREB), the Department of Environment (DOE), and Meteorological Department would monitor the weather and the air quality. Furthermore, he said, enforcement would be tightened to catch people who carried out open burning.
Tengah said NREB had taken the initiative to review its environmental regulations and had introduced the Natural Resources and Environment (Audit) Rules, 2008. He said the audit was to check compliance with the rules and laws set by the board. “Soon, NREB would be enforcing the law given that it had already prepared the guidelines for the Environment Audit. “It would also carry out a roadshow to make stakeholders aware of the new rules. Earlier, he said one of the main causes of haze was open burning which normally occurred during the dry season when paddy farms are being prepared. Since last January till this month, there were 352 hotspots in the state compared to 2,504 in Sumatra and 934 in Kalimantan.

Malaysia: RM3bil to expand timber plantations

Malaysia will spend up to RM3bil to increase timber plantations in a bid to ensure the sustainability of wood-related industries. Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that they hoped to increase timber plantations to 375,000ha by 2020. "We need to ensure the sustainability of the raw material for the wood industry. This industry is important for the country as it generated RM20bil in exports last year," he said.The wood industry contributed 14.1% of exports for the commodity industry totalling RM141.2bil last year, he told reporters at the launch of the Glu Laminated Timber gallery in Johor Baru here on Tuesday. He said that, so far, RM600mil had been spent on programmes to increase timber plantations nationwide.

Plantation timber in Sabah hit the 1 million cubic metre

KOTA KINABALU: Production of plantation timber in Sabah hit the 1 million cubic metre mark last year with a total production of 1,234,777.75 cubic metres, a first for the state, Sabah Forestry director Datuk Sam Mannan said today. He said total production from plantation timber had increased by 141 per cent since 2001 with Acacia mangium showing the most significant increase at 231 per cent, making it the major plantation species produced over the last 10 years."Last year, Acacia mangium accounted for 87 per cent of the total production of plantation timber, followed by Eucalyptus grandis at 11 per cent, Gmelina arborea at 1 per cent and others at 1 per cent.


"Utilisation of rubber wood however remains small despite the extensive land clearing of old rubber plantations for replanting of new rubber trees," he said in a statement here Sabah Forest Industries Sdn Bhd (SFI) accounted for 60 per cent of last year's production, making it Sabah's biggest plantation timber producer, followed by Sabah Forestry Development Authority (Safoda) at 16 per cent, Sabah Softwoods Bhd at 12 per cent and Benta Wawasan Sdn Bhd at 11 per cent, he said.In terms of production by land status, he said 58 per cent of plantation timber was produced from forest reserves, with alienated lands at 26 per cent and state lands at 16 per cent. Meanwhile, log production from natural forests was approximately 2.6 million cubic metres, higher than plantation timber, he said, adding the state's goal of making plantation timber the major source of raw materials for the timber industry can be achieved if the current trend continues.

Indonesia denies increased deforestation

The Indonesian government has declared that a report regarding the country’s loss of almost five million hectares of forest and peatlands since the implementation of a moratorium on deforestation is misleading.

“The report cannot be understood because it’s different from the forestry ministry’s record, which says the deforestation rate over the past few years has drastically decreased to around 500,000 hectares annually,” said Agus Purnomo, a presidential special aide on climate change on Monday. But Greenpeace adamantly claims that Indonesia is still losing forest lands at an alarming rate. “By May 2012, Indonesia could lose 4.9 million hectares of its forests and peatlands. With each revision of the forest moratorium, the acreage continues to decrease,” said Yuyun Indradi, political campaigner of Greenpeace in recent statement.

Agus Purnomo, however, cited a Forest Ministry’s report that Indonesia’s deforestation rate has decreased over the last 10 years. “We invite Greenpeace to explain its methodology used to determine the forest degradation in order to clarify the issue. Determining whether the figure is just imaginary or an accurate figure might lead to the correction of Indonesia’s deforestation rate,” Purnomo noted, adding that the dramatization of this issue could reinforce a lie.