Progress of Planting

Licence For Planted Forests ( LPF) Area and Location

LPF area spreads over the whole of the state of Sarawak. As at June,2009 a total of 42 LPFs have been issued covering a gross area of 2.8 million hectares. However, only about 50% or a net area of 1.3 million hectares is plantable. Large portion of the LPFs area has to be excluded for protection functions. These include high terrain areas, buffer zone and unplantable for various reasons.

The bulk of the LPFs are located in the central region of Sarawak.The map and table 1below shows the extent of the LPF area andthe number of LPFs issued:

 Map showing extent of LPF area

Table 1: Number and location of LPFs issued

 * Limbang/Lawas  ** Kapit/Sibu  *** Sibu/Bintulu  **** Mukah/Sibu

Under clause 26 of the Forests (Planted Forests) Rules,1997 the Government has allowed the LPF holders to plant oil palm covering 20% of the plantable area for one cycle of 25 years to allow flexibility in their cash flow management.

As at June 2009, a total of 321,525 hectares of the land areas has been planted with trees and oil palm. This is roughly 30% of the total plantable areas allocated. Out of this, 238,641 hectares have planted with trees and 82,884 hectares with oil palm.

Species Planted.

Species choice for the planted forests are left to the LPF holders, however, approval has to be sought from the Director of Forests under rule 11(b) of the Forests Rules. Most of the species planted is Acacia mangium followed by kelempayan, batai and eucalpyptus. Table 2 belows shows the acreage being planted with different species:

Table 2: The acreage of each species planted.