MP SPEAKS | I welcome the government allocation of RM500 million to continue the Forest Plantation Development Scheme under the 12th Malaysia Plan in the 2021 budget.

However, I wish the government can learn from the mistakes of implementing the scheme from 2006 to 2020, including the adverse effects of the fund leading to encroachment into the Permanent Reserve Forests (PRFs).

The implementation of the 15-year scheme from 2006 and which is scheduled to end this year has inadvertently turned into a perverse incentive as there were no built-in safeguards against the conversion of relatively well-stocked forests into monoculture timber plantations...