He said the issue was being investigated by the state Forestry Department, with five cases brought to court and several others currently under study.
“Some people have been chopping down trees and extracting timber illegally from these forests, selling them. Some others have been cultivating crops on the land. This is illegal deforestation.
“We urge all of them to stop these activities immediately because we have a specific law for timber extraction.
“If logging activities are not controlled, it will cause mud floods,” he said after officiating the Greening Malaysia Programme: Tasik Raban Lenggong in conjunction with the Perak-level 100 Million Tree-Planting Campaign at Dataran Tasik Raban, 60km from Ipoh today.
Also present was energy and natural resources minister Shamsul Anuar Nasarah.
Saarani said a special committee had been formed to deal with the issue and the state Forestry Department had also identified those involved in the activities as well as the illegal deforestation sites.
Earlier in his speech, Saarani said Perak has planted 100,000 trees since early January and would intensify its efforts to encourage the people’s participation in the campaign to achieve the state’s target of planting 10 million trees by 2025.
At the same news conference, Shamsul said to date, a total of 5.8 million trees have been planted nationwide, with Sarawak recording the highest number.
“I’m confident that we can achieve the target (of planting 100 million trees nationwide by 2025) based on our achievement so far. We hope the various quarters will volunteer to take part in this programme together with government-linked companies and corporate bodies.”
Earlier, Saarani and Shamsul planted several trees that are synonymous with Perak such as the ipoh, beruas, kangsar and sungkai trees at the Tasik Raban area.
On Jan 5, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin launched the 100 Million Tree-Planting Campaign 2021-2025, themed “Greening Malaysia: Our Trees, Our Life”. The campaign was also launched simultaneously at the state level by the respective menteris besar and chief ministers.
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