The Government-initiated Forest Management Unit (FMU) programme was meant to ensure forestry sustainability in Sabah but instead it is creating untold hardship and suffering to the people living within its perimeters.
Citing the FMU-gazetted area in Sugut, Beluran, Upko Deputy President Datuk Seri Wilfred M. Bumburing said the forestry programme made the villagers poorer.
He claimed the villagers were not allowed to develop the land they inherited from their forefathers. "They are not even allowed to reside in the lands or plant rice and other crops on it," he said after visiting the affected villages that include Kampung Simpang Satu, Dua and Tiga.
He said the action of these government-appointed FMU concessionaires was certainly not helping the Government achieve the zero poverty target by 2010.
"The FMU programme was aimed at helping the people who have lived in the gazetted area before the FMU policy was introduced, to enjoy better quality of life.
"But sadly, the rakyat in these areas, he said were now faced with having nothing to eat."
According to him, during the PBS government, a committee was formed and chaired by him to look into the traditional villages located within forest reserves areas.
"The policy then was that if the kampong was in existence before the Forest Reserve areas were gazetted, the areas where the villages are located must be excised out," he said.
He recalled the time he was a State Minister under the tenure of Datuk Yong Teck Lee as Chief Minister when the FMU contract was first tabled and discussed in a Cabinet meeting.
During the meeting, he said he cautioned Cabinet members and the Government about the existence of more than a hundred traditional villages within the forest reserves.
Bumburing, who is also Tuaran MP, said he feared even then that the FMU concessionaires would restrict the villagers in their daily activities and therefore affect their livelihood.
"Today, what I feared had become a reality. The villagers who reside within the FMU areas are not allowed to plant padi or any other cash crops.
"The promise of lucrative harvest from the Acacia trees which they planted during the Berjaya administration under Datuk Harris Salleh are now being taken over by the FMU concessionaires. They are not even allowed to cut the trees that they themselves had planted to build their own houses," he said.
"The villagers had lodged several complaints to the authorities but unfortunately were ignored."
Bumburing said the people's socio economic situation is in bad shape and their only means of communication with the outside world is through abandoned logging roads.
These people, he said, do not enjoy basic social amenities that were provided to people in other areas. Most of them had to depend on unhygienic water collected from waterholes for their cooking, washing and bathing.
Along these lines, he urged the State Government to reintroduced the policy that would protect traditional villages that lies within any Forest Reserve and especially those who are living within the FMU areas.
"I also strongly urge the State Government to implement the promise to excise the villages and its surrounding areas from the FMU areas and provide them with means to uplift their livelihood," he said.
Instead of channeling huge funds to finance mega projects that would benefit only a chosen few, he said a comprehensive development plan should be introduced to benefit the people in the areas concerned such as those in rural Sugut.
Immediate plans also must be drawn and implemented to solve the problem arising from these FMU contracts.
"Surely, we do not want to witness another case of properties owned by the indigenous people being burned such as what had happened in Paitan and Endarassy."
On other developments, Bumburing urged the State Government to provide and implement a policy to protect ancestral land or those claimed by the local people under native customary rights from being taken away by the FMU concessionaires.
He said the Government should take serious note of the plight of the Marudu folks as highlighted in the Daily Express on Sept 9.
He claimed to have spoken to the leader of the group who opposed the move by Safoda to give the land to a company.
Bumburing said he would be visiting the affected areas in Marudu to seek first hand information from the people concerning their problem.
"I want to assure the local community that Upko will highlight their problem to the highest authority. I will also write a letter to the relevant government department to seek a positive solution to their problem," he said
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