Kitingan says carbon deal is going ahead with first batch of forest reserves allocated

KOTA KINABALU, Aug 12 — An introduction phase into the controversial carbon deal between the Sabah government and Hoch Standard has begun with a 600,000-hectare area of forest reserves, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Jeffrey Kitingan.

The proponent of the controversial carbon deal, called the Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA), said that the first phase of the project was underway, and they were at the stage of designating the areas to be allocated before groundwork can proceed.

“We now have about 200,000 hectares so we are waiting for the other portion. I have had discussions with the Forestry Department and the chief minister, and he said the 600,000 hectares will be made available,” he said.

“No such thing as a pilot project. It is the initial launch,” he said during an online talk on the “Sabah Way Forward” Facebook platform hosted by Kupi Kupi FM.

Kitingan, who is state agriculture, food industries and fisheries minister, said that the area will involve different classes of forest reserve, for example, the Trus Madi, the second tallest mountain in the country.

He said the NCA involves a total of two million hectares, but this will depend on the success of the first phase. “We will do the rest once the government is satisfied,” he said.

Kitingan said that the project will take up to 18 months to get off the ground and see results as they will need to arrange for satellite, planes, drones, forest rangers and human capital on the ground.

“There will be a data room to indicate what we have. Then people need to verify that data and from there we can create certification then can start the process of grading so on.

“But before that a lot of preparation goes into it and the company will have to come up with all the expenses in order to mobilise and get it started before results can be seen. There are project developers in other areas, off takers, auditors, and so on. A lot of processes. So, at the end of the day, it will be a year before results can be seen,” he said.

Kitingan said there was urgency to get the project off the ground claiming the state was losing out on lucrative profits up to RM8 million per day, every day the project was not on.

Earlier, he claimed that there were parties determined to derail the project, with the latest move being a court application for a judicial review to question the processes of the NCA.

Kitingan, who is also the chairman of the Steering and Management Committee for the Implementation of the NCA, claimed that all due diligence has been carried out, and that the project would conform to the latest international standards of carbon credit management and sales.

“Maybe one year from now we can see results, then the people who were against it, those taking much effort to delay the start the project, one day they will blame themselves because they were carried away by certain people because of misunderstanding and greed.

“One year can prove to critics that this is the right thing to do for Sabah,” he said.