Should We Rely on Natural Forests to Produce Timber? A Preliminary Study of Kelantan

Abstract

Kelantan is one of the states in Malaysia with the third largest forest area in Malaysia. Most of the forest in Kelantan has not explored. However, some of the forest areas cleared for logging and development activities. In response to the Malaysian government’s commitment to sustainable forest management, the state of Kelantan took the initiative by developing forest plantation to support the production of raw materials for timber-based industrial activities. The major sources of the raw materials for timber coming from the natural forest instead of forest plantation. This paper examines the economic impact on the supply of timber in Kelantan complies with the scenarios under Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) practices. The Ordinary Least Square method was used time-series data from 2010 to 2017. The scenario comprised of three scenarios; (i) reduced by 24% in harvested area in natural forest, (ii) increased by 24% in harvested area in forest plantation and (iii) incorporated with scenarios (i) and (ii). The result reveals that the supply of timber affected by SFM practices. However, the shortage of timber enhanced by the production of timber from forest plantation by 4.8% when both scenarios imposed together. This indicated that the changes from dependence on the natural forest-to-forest plantation to produce timber in the further are needed. The state government of Kelantan need to encourage forest authority to increase the intensity of forest plantation in Kelantan order to fulfill the production of timber as raw material for forest products. This action would generate economic growth in the timber-based sector in line with its sustainability in Kelantan. It will also help to enhance its forest conservation goal in Peninsular Malaysia.