What “No Net Loss” looks like on the ground in Malaysia
By Theiva Lingam and Nele Mariën, Friends of the Earth
Recent Malaysian legislation included transparency rules about deforestation, but linked it to offsetting requirements: where a permanent reserved forest is intended to be takendown, then a new equal or bigger area of land to replace it needs to be identified. Already first examples show serious shortcomings. In August 2021, despite massive public protest, 536 hectares of an eight-thousand-year-old peat swamp forest, which is also a site of critical importance for indigenous communities, known as the Kuala Langat North Forest Reserve (KLNFR) stopped being a Reserve, in order to build a mixed development project in the state of Selangor.
When KLNFR lost its status as a forest reserve, the state’s solution was to create a new forest reserve containing “land of equivalent or higher value or better forest” about 100km away from the existing forest reserve. When a check was done on the ground, this forest had already been destroyed twice for huge agricultural schemes.
Hence, the biodiversity and habitat loss of the KLNFR forest in one part of the state will not be compensated for in the other part of the state. It also implies Indigenous Peoples losing their rights in the Reserve and getting nothing in return. The value of what has been lost in one part of the forest will never be gained in another area replaced as forest.
Such “No Net loss” policies are being promoted not only in Malaysia, but all around the world. They are the basis of the conservation goals in the GBF, but practice shows that they negatively affect IPLCs rights and environmental integrity.
We call for separately treating ecosystem destruction –to be absolutely minimized- and restoration –to be maximized, but paying attention to do it in an inclusive, participatory and environmentally sound way. Making it a zero-sum game doesn't work!
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