Synopses & Reviews
This study of deforestation in Malaysia's three regions examines the different factors that shape them, the institutions and policies that determine forestry development, the ecological impact of deforestation, and sustainability. Much Malaysian deforestation reflects agricultural expansion or rural development and poverty alleviation projects, while logging became more significant after independence. Sabah and Sarawak have relied increasingly on the exploitation of their timber resources, and private greed and corruption at state level have overridden federal policies of sustainable management. The authors take a hard look at the economic and political forces in the international tropical timber trade. An ecologically rapacious emphasis on growth, coupled with politically powerful distribution coalitions, give little chance for policy reforms and no hope of radical change. The only pressure that has the slightest effect, it seems, is international criticism.
Synopsis
Deforesting Malaysia: The Political Economy and Social Ecology of Agricultural Expansion and Commercial Logging critically examines the major economic, political and social forces responsible for deforestation in Malaysia.
It carefully distinguishes among the three major regions of the country, namely Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, not only in recognition of the ecological variation of equatorial Malaysia, but also of the different economic, political and social dynamics involved.
Originally commissioned by UNRISD, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, this volume primarily considers the role of agricultural expansion in deforestation.
In recent decades after independence, however, commercial logging has greatly increased in significance, exacerbated by the complex dynamics of Malaysian federal-state fiscal relations, 'money politics', 'cronyism' and international demand for tropical timber.
A large team of contributors to the research that went into the volume supported the principal authors.
Table of Contents
Preface * Malaysia: An Introduction * Agriculture and the Forests * Peninsular Malaysia * Sabah * Sarawak * Markets, Politics and Logging * Conclusion