The major challenge in
projecting wood and fibre supplies is to estimate the future availability of
tree and forest resources that will continue to be used for production and to
calculate the volume of roundwood that might be produced from such areas. A
basic input for any projection is the area of production forests and forest
plantations. Unfortunately, comprehensive forest inventory information of
national forest plantation resources, particularly those owned by the private
sector is generally scarce. Available figures are often weak and unreliable and
improving the underlying statistics requires continuous efforts. Developing new
and refining existing data collection frameworks remain a priority.
The question as to what role
forest plantations might play in meeting the future demand for forest products
is linked closely to past, current and future patterns in forest plantation
development. As most projections can only rely on provisional or indicative
data, tentative analyses and ballpark figures or guesstimates are common. There
are numerous reasons for this shortcoming. One is that most forest departments
concentrate their efforts on collecting data and presenting information on
public sector plantations only. Until recently, this approach was justified.
However, a global shift towards privatization has led to increasing investments
in plantation development by the private sector. In relative terms the
plantation areas administered and managed by the public sector – the state
forest department in the case of Peninsular Malaysia – are shrinking, although
in many countries the public sector continues to dominate the plantation
sector.
In Peninsular Malaysia, it
is expected that the private sector will play a more important role in the
development of plantations. The government encourages private sector
involvement and promotes the privatization of its own plantations. While demand
is increasing and the commercial sector is also increasingly interested in
forest plantation development to secure raw materials for its processing
plants, there is no information on the status of the spatial extent and quality
of private plantations in Peninsular Malaysia. As a case study of the
involvement of the private sector in Peninsular Malaysia, this study will
assess the status of private forest plantations.
