GEORGE TOWN: Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) has urged the state government to carry out conservation efforts for the mangrove forest in Penaga, Kepala Batas, and not make empty promises like before. Its field officer Meor Razak Meor Abdul Rahman said the government had principally agreed to gazette the mangrove forest as one of the state’s permanent forest reserves back in 2007 but nothing has been done since then. “The state government had agreed during an exco meeting in 2007 to gazette the area but the plan seemed to have turned to dust. “At that time, the state Forestry Department had already mooted to the state government that the Penaga mangrove area, which was then approximately 200ha, and other sites should be gazetted as permanent forest reserves, ” he said. “The objective by the Malaysian Peninsular Forestry Department in 2020 is to achieve at least five million hectares of permanent forest reserve of the total land area of Peninsular Malaysia.

Source: The Star November 14, 2019 21:45 UTC