Is poverty-eradication programme the cause of Kelantan’s floods?

Clearcutting of forests for Kelantan’s controversial "ladang rakyat" (people's plantation) programme was a cause of the massive floods that hit the northeastern state, environmentalists said.

These claims come as Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob denied that state-sanctioned logging had contributed to the floods, which affected 100,000 people at its height, saying that deforestation was the result of illegal land clearing.

They said the programme saw huge tracts of forests in Gua Musang and Kuala Krai – two of the worst hit districts – being cleared to create latex timber clone (LTC) plantations.

Latex timber is a type of rubber tree that is grown for timber.

Continuous clear-cutting since the programme began in 2006, they said, would have caused soil and debris to run off and choke rivers such as Sungai Galas, Lebir and Kelantan which flow through Gua Musang, Kuala Krai, Tanah Merah and Kota Baru.

Water from these clogged rivers would then overflow and flood surrounding houses and businesses during heavy rain such as those that occurred in December.

In an immediate response, Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar Datuk Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah refutes such claims, stressing yet again that it had always kept to logging limits set by Putrajaya, even when it involved land in the ladang rakyat programme.

Poverty reduction programme

Previous media reports had stated that the programme involved turning more than 70,000 hectares of land all over the state into plantations.

The Kelantan government had boasted that the programme could reduce poverty in the state. Individuals below a certain income level would become participants in the plantation schemes and would earn monthly dividends of RM200.

The programme is run by the state-controlled Kelantan Ladang Rakyat Development Corporation, which owns the land.

Parcels are then leased for 99 years to private companies to turn into plantations of oil palm and latex timber clone.

Ladang rakyat has been criticised for taking land that is being claimed by private owners including Orang Asli customary land.

The Auditor-General had criticised the ladang rakyat programme in his 2012 report for encroaching on Orang Asli customary land.

When it comes to ladang rakyat’s connection to the floods, environmentalists believe it has to do with how some of the land for its plantations is taken from permanent forest reserves (PFR).

Forestry expert Lim Teck Wyn said under a 1984 law, PFR can only be used for timber production. Any form of agriculture, whether it’s planting rice, fruits or oil palm is forbidden.

“The forest is supposed to be selectively logged, meaning you only cut and bring out the big trees such as cengal or meranti. But the forest still remains,” Lim told The Malaysian Insider.

In the last 10 years, the state government, against the advice of the Forestry Department, had been going into these PFRs to clear them out and replace the trees and vegetation with LTC trees, Lim said.

The end result is that forests are hollowed out and are replanted with rubber timber plantations in the middle.

“They then claim these LTC plantations are used to provide timber,” Lim said.

This skirts the 1984 law because it is argued that the PFR is still being used to provide timber.

From an ecological stand point, however, cutting down a forest to build a plantation still causes soil to erode and wash down into rivers, making them shallower, Lim said.

“And Kelantan has the highest rate of disappearing permanent forest reserves in Peninsular Malaysia.”

Orang Asli saw it coming

The first people to directly feel the impact of all this deforestation have been the Orang Asli community in Gua Musang, where much of the forest clearing happens.

Since 2012, there had been media reports about how the Orang Asli in Gua Musang had protested in vain against clearcutting of their customary lands.

“The Orang Asli are very resilient but even they were surprised at how fast flood waters had risen,” said Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC) head Colin Nicholas.

The COAC has been coordinating supply drops for the Orang Asli in Kelantan whose villages have been cut off due to the floods.

Fast rising flood waters is another result of cutting down forests, said Lim. When the vegetation disappears, there is nothing to soak up rain so it flows rapidly to rivers which then overflow.

“In one village, the water rose so fast a mother dropped her baby into the water as they were rushing to evacuate,” said Nicholas.

The baby was rescued, but died days later from a fever believed to have been caused by being submerged in water, Nicholas said.

There are already eight cases against the Kelantan government that various Orang Asli villages are preparing to take to court, some of which involve customary land taken for ladang rakyat.

Nicholas is not surprised that the consequences of all that deforestation is being felt now since the Orang Asli have long seen it coming.

“The rate of deforestation has increased after ladang rakyat," he said.

Abnormal weather, not logging

Nik Amar admits that Kelantan logs its forests but refutes the claim that it had caused or worsened the floods.

“We have data that states that we experienced several days of abnormal, continuous rain.

“There were two days where the amount of rain was equivalent to the total amount of rain Kelantan experienced for a month last year,” said Nik Amar to The Malaysian Insider.

Flood waters also kept rising due to high tides he said.

A December 28 report quoted climatologists who said a combination of the year-end monsoon, perigean spring tide and the La Nina phenomenon had contributed to the worse-than-usual floods in northeastern Peninsular Malaysia.

To claims that forest acreage was being replaced by ladang rakyat plantations, he said Kelantan has stuck to the 5,960ha cap set by the National Land Council.

“Licences to log and bring out trees are given by the State Forestry Department which answers to the Federal department.

“We have stuck to the regulations for logging in permanent forest reserves and state government land,” said Nik Amar.

Mohd Amar admits that main rivers in Kelantan have gotten shallow but disputes the argument that this was caused by siltation due to logging.

“Rivers are dying because there is no water in them. So the sand at the bottom does not get pushed out to sea and they become shallow.”

Floods in Kelantan, he said, were an annual occurrence but this year was worse because of the abnormal rainfall.

“In 1926, we had the bah merah (red flood). It was one of the worst. But there was no logging back then.” – January 4, 2015.