Sustainable forest management is the goal and objective of Sabah Government.

Seems like the favourite pastime of the Malaysian opposition members is cherry picking. And Junz Wong of Party Warisan is one of the outstanding cherry pickers amongst the opposition representatives.

Junz Wong is on it again in his recent attempt to discredit Yayasan Sabah timber business. He is cherry-picking the issue to tell only a fraction of the facts and leave the majority of the truth out.
You see, Junz Wong was a typical simpleton when he was with DAP. Meaning, he never thinks properly and always acting on impulse.

This has been proven correct from his previous fiasco on the made believe fake robbery case in KK Suria Shopping Center that saw him suspended from the State Assembly. Maybe after he frog-jumped to Party Warisan he has grown up somewhat and picked up some sneaky and sinister skills from his current political master and party leader that whatever is not good or beneficial to Party Warisan, kill it with lies and distorted facts.

In the statement that Junz Wong gave about the helicopter logging on Yayasan Sabah concession, he basically highlighted only three things, namely;

1. Was Yayasan Sabah exploited?
2. Why was Yayasan Sabah only paid RM65/m3 in royalty?
3. Shown all the market prices of tropical logs in USD and hopefully, this will create an impression that the logging contractor is having a lopsided contract from Yayasan Sabah and this contractor is making a huge profit.

This is typical opposition political psycho technique; highlight only what they want their voters to know and keep voters away from the truth of the issue. Hopefully, this will keep the voters ignorant and dumb forever so that they can continue to manipulate them according to their whims and fancy.

Now let us examine what the helicopter logging on Yayasan Sabah is all about and the challenges that the state government is facing, and the resolutions that the current Sabah government are having on our forest and its resources.

The reason for Yayasan Sabah to carry out helicopter logging or aerial logging is simply to comply with their corporate objective of pursuing Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) on its forest concessions to preserve the forest environment as pristine as possible so that the future generations can continue to enjoy a clean and thriving forest in years to come.

Helicopter logging is expensive, in fact, it is the most expensive logging method in the industry. There are plenty of information and example on the internet to prove how expensive helicopter logging is.

The current helicopter logging rate in the US is about USD100-150/MT, while the time-charter rate by the helicopter logging contractor (Russian) here in Sabah is reportedly started at about USD8,500/hour in 2013 and has since risen to over USD10,000/hour as according to insider sources.

The cost of helicopter operation is more than 70% of the total operating expenses running at about USD100-120/m3, and these figures are available with SSM in the annual audit report filed by companies involving in the helicopter logging operation in Yayasan Sabah concessions. These figures are accessible by anyone, including Junz Wong.

Besides the time-chartered cost on the helicopter, there are other operational costs and fees incurred in this business operation as well, and they are;

A. The ground operational cost which is estimated at about RM100-120/m3.
B. Royalty for Yayasan Sabah at about RM65/m3.
C. The duty levied by Sabah Forest Department at about RM85/m3 (applied only for helicopter logging or RIL).
D. Levy for Environmental Conservation at RM10/m3.
E. 25% income tax on profits derived from the operation.

All-in-all, the total operational cost, royalty, duty & levy, and taxes are estimated to run at about USD200-240/m3. Assuming the log is selling at USD300/m3 (as suggested by Junz Wong), the net margin for the contractor will be about 20-25%, which is a reasonable margin for any business in the world.

So, in order to question if Yayasan Sabah is being exploited, one must first understand the whole picture and learn the full spectrum of the business operation. It is irresponsible to show a small part of the picture and a few numbers and figures here and there and expecting voters to fill in the blank.
If you ask if royalty for Yayasan Sabah is low, the answer is yes and no. Yes, it is low if you take a straight line approach to consider the amount of royalty against the market price without taking into account of other cost and expenses incurred, which the royalty paid to Yayasan Sabah is only about 5-7% of the selling price.

" However, if you consider from the environmental conservation point of view, it is a big NO, this is because there is always a trade-off when you take on the account of forest 

preservation and the direct and indirect cost involved. 

You can't have the best of both worlds. "

You see, unlike the oppositions, the current Sabah government is very particular about environmental conservation, and that is why there is no more commercial timber concession awarded since the current chief minister, Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Aman was elected to the post.

Under the current CM, Sabah government has placed close to a million hectares of prime forest land as Total Protection Area (TPA). To give the readers a sense of scale, Singapore is measured at about 72,000 hectares in size and the current TPA forest in Sabah is more than 12 times the size of Singapore. On top of that, Sabah is the first and only state in Malaysia that has an active conservation policy and programs on its forest and timber resources with foreign NGOs.

Currently, there are 9 areas of more than 750 thousand hectares certified under the world renounced forest conservation body, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification on Sabah's TPA areas. And about 200 thousand hectares more are certified under the PEFC-MTCS System and Verification of Legal Compliance (VLC). There are more forest areas in Sabah being audited for environmental certification as we speak.

According to FSC report and statistics, Sabah forest can be considered as one of the most protected tropical forests in the world.

These are hard and verifiable facts and wonder if Junz Wong cares about all these works that the state government has done in our forest? And if he cares to read up on these facts and data before criticizing the State Government and Yayasan Sabah?

Datuk Musa Aman has a reason for doing all these. The involvement of foreign certification bodies is to have a non-bias, accurate and responsible auditing of our forest resources. This is the best check and balance on our forest resources to prevent anybody, now and in the future from misappropriating our forest and scar our land.

If anyone still has doubts about the validity and accuracy of these facts, one can check the following websites for verification.

http://www.forest.sabah.gov.my/…/470-sabah-receives-more-fo…

http://www.thestar.com.my/…/sabah-leads-the-way-with-two-m…/

https://ga2017.fsc.org/timetable/event/tropical-forest/

Perhaps the real intention and question of Junz Wong are to ask why are Datuk Musa Aman placing so many hurdles and having so many of our forest area placed under TPA and under the watchful eyes of foreign NGOs? This will make life extremely difficult for Party Warisan if they form the next state government, IF EVER.

Source  : Sabah Talk