Hj Saidin Salleh in
an exclusive interview said the department needed a total of 118 forest rangers
to implement "Divide and Patrol", one of their strategic actions in
forest patrol.
"We are only at 11 per cent capacity to enforce our
forestry laws. At the moment we are monitoring illegal activities such as
illegal harvesting of gaharu (sandalwood), patrolling our international
boundaries, and also helping other agencies like Protap Salimbada, and also
police in providing them assistance or men at the camps," he said.
Protap Salimbada members comprise of the Royal
Brunei Police Force, the Royal Brunei Armed Forces, the Survey Department, the
Land Department and Forestry Departments.
The "Divide and Patrol" operation
would cover 17 monitoring zones, divided into five stations, Hj Saidin said in
a slide presentation delivered at the second day of the Eighth Meeting of the
Asean Experts Group on the Convention on International Trade In Endangered
Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (8th AEG-CITES).
Hj Saidin explained that at least 33 teams of
forest rangers alongside teams made up of other enforcement agencies were
required to run the operation at full capacity.
The ratio of a forest area to be covered by a
forest ranger is 3,700 hectare (ha), he added.
"That's clearly not enough, meaning we want
to do it in a comprehensive manner ... we divide and patrol Brunei into 17
zones, whereby in the 17 zones, in each zone at any time of the day, you will
always see forest ranger patrolling in one car and also one police car, you can
find them at any one time of the day in that zone."
It is not feasible for one forest ranger to
patrol from one zone to another on the same day, he said.
"He can't just swing from Batang Duri to
Peradayan Forest Park. Or people travelling to the Belait zones and swing to
Labi on the same day.
"At the moment, how we make do with
existing staff is that we try to maximise the (monitoring) coverage.
We have
one permanent patrol team and the rest we ask them to team up with other
sections (agencies). The reasons in doing so are for economical and safety
aspects."
Asked whether this alternative helped in fully
enforcing Brunei's Forestry Laws, the director said: "To a certain extent.
We probably can't say (that) we enforce 100 per cent because we know what we
are lacking. That is the problem."
"We also want to know how the other
agencies do their patrol, for us to synchronise (with them). If we know exactly
the other agencies patrol this site, we go to the site, just to have enough
coverage, to make it more efficient. So that it is not redundant.
"If we know Salimbada or any other police
agency is patrolling a site like in Muara, we don't have to go there because it
is taken care of already by the police. We can concentrate somewhere else like
Sungai Ingei."
Latest information from the department's website
stated that the department is currently awaiting the endorsement of a new
Forestry Laws and Regulations, which will take into account national, regional
and international developments on forestry and related subjects.
The key points in the amendments will include
updated definition and scope of terms, institutional framework, legal bases for
forest management and utilisation, forestry royalty, penal provisions, and
other pertinent aspects.
The Brunei Times
