Masing planting a rubber tree at the estate to commemorate his visit.

KUCHING: The Land Development Ministry is looking at some 30,000 hectares (ha) of idle Native Customary Rights (NCR) land around Sungai Sut and Sungai Mujong in Kapit, to be turned into rubber plantation as part of the state’s reforestation programme.

Planting rubber trees on non-productive NCR land would fully tap its potential and help raise the income of local communities, apart from improving local economic growth, said minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Dr James Masing.

He initiated the idea after visiting a rubber estate at Keningau, Sabah managed by Bornion Timber Sdn Bhd – a company from Sarawak.

Since 2005, the company has planted about five million rubber trees on some 16,000ha of land.

He added that the company was given more than 89,000ha of land by the Sabah government for them to manage for reforestation, with rubber trees and acacia being the two tree species planted as part of the forest management programme.

Bornion Timber presently has some 2.5 million rubber seedlings ready to be planted.

Impressed by the Sabah initiative, Masing is looking at inviting Bornion Timber to undertake a similar programme here.

“I visited the estate with my officers to see what Bornion Timber is doing and perhaps later, I would like to invite them to plant rubber trees on NCR land across Kapit Division.

This is especially so, since most of the terrain in Kapit is friendlier to rubber trees than palm oil (than other parts).

“My ministry has surveyed the areas around Sungai Sut and along the Kapit-Sungai Mujong road.

There are no less than 30,000ha of idle NCR land there,” Masing, who is also Baleh assemblyman, told The Borneo Post recently.

The minister was accompanied by his officers during the trip to Sook, Keningau where Sabah’s Assistant Minister to Chief Minister Datuk Ellron Alfred Angin who is also Sook assemblyman, Tuaran MP Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau and Bornion Timber chairman Datuk Wee Kok Tiong were present to welcome them.

Masing pointed out that rubber trees would be the most suitable cash crop for the Kapit folk as these plants were not as regimented as palm oil.

Furthermore, he explained that the Dayaks, especially the Ibans, would be more familiar with the culture of rubber planting and the industry as a whole, than with other plantations.

Touching on Bornion Timber’s involvement in Sabah’s reforestation programme, the company’s initial task on the implementation of the Forest Management Plan (FMP) 2002-2011 was to rehabilitate about 13,500ha of land.

The company is now in the Second FMP (2012-2021), which focuses on ongoing development of about 25,000ha of land with rubber trees.

Bornion Timber is currently undergoing the auditing for ‘Sustainable Forest Management Certification’ by the Malaysian Timber Certification Council.

So far, it has planted more than 15,000ha of rubber trees and about 900ha of acacia trees.