Stop Acacia Plantation in Middle of Two Forest Reserves

From article entitled “Choking our Forest Reserves” by Rick Gregory:
Ecological disaster if acacia tree plantation along the East-West Highway, on land bordering the Belum and Temenggor forests goes ahead. Acacia is a fast growing tree that produces quality wood for the furniture industry and is meant for marginal lands, not to supplant vigorous forests.

This plan goes against Forestry Department policies. The Belum – Temenggor forest is 4x the size of Singapore and is mostly intact primary rainforest and a treasure trove of biodiversity and sustains megafauna e.g. Malayan tiger, Asian Elephant, 10 Malaysian hornbills, Rafflesia flower, ancient cycads, a range of monkeys and gibbons and orang asli communities.

The East-West Highway divides this enormous, but single, ecosystem into two main parts:
• Belum Forest Reserve to the north; and
• Temenggor Forest Reserve to the south.

This highway is currently not a barrier to wildlife migrations with few human – animal conflicts. However the Perak State Government intends to plant a 4km-wide swathe of acacia trees along this Highway, which will turn the Belum-Temenggor forest into a fragmented landscape creating two distinct habitat unable to ecologically function as before because it will:
• Act as a barrier that prevents easy access across the highway.
• Reduces cover and exposes animals to danger
• Disturbs migratory patterns and territorial needs for finding scattered food resources and potential breeding partners. Big animals require large spaces, so forest size is critical for wild mammals to retain breeding populations with sufficient pools of genetic diversity.
• Increase of animal / human conflict e.g. Shrinking habitats cause elephants, which are not fond of acacia, to seek fruits and fresh leaves in other areas e.g. village gardens, oil palm plantations.

Acacia plantations are sterile monocultures: one tree type, unpalatable leaves, limited wildlife cover, and unsuitable habitat for most species. It is devoid of the type of biological life that exudes from rainforests. Converting a complex tropical forest into a monoculture crop is illogical. In Sumatra paper mills around plantations creates an increase in demand from wood in that area and ends up coming from both natural forests (whether legally or illegally) and plantations.

Consequences for Belum-Temenggor if the East-West Highway becomes a corridor for pulpwood:
#Loss of ecotourism potential – Sometimes it is possible to see elephants and other wildlife while travelling the East-West Highway. #Fragmentation folly – Severing Belum-Temenggor splits one of Malaysia’s more stable sanctuaries for animal survival, invaluable because of its size and prime lowland forests that are vital for large mammals.
# A plethora of pigs – Bearded pigs are the only animal that forage in acacia plantations, pigs may dominate the highway zone landscape and become a nuisance.
#Widening the conflict zone – Elephants and other animals are known
to forage on agricultural crops and destroy cultivated fields.
With increase of pigs there could be an increase of tigers which could lead to increase of poachers and conflict.