Problems faced by investors

Forest tree planting on private land has faced a number of problems. The most important constraints appear to be lack of knowledge on tree planting, difficulty in selecting appropriate species, uncertain market prices, lack of land and difficulty in obtaining quality seedlings (Table 16).

Table 16.  Obstacles and problems faced in forest tree planting

Note: Some respondents provided multiple answers.

Future intentions

The future of private sector plantations in Peninsular Malaysia appears to look bleak. The future plans of most respondents do not include forest tree planting (Table 17). Only one company plans to extend its holdings. It has planted 20 ha of mixed tree species as buffer zones around its oil palm and rubber plantations. It plans to plant tembusu in 2002/03, balau in 2003/04 and binuang in 2004/05. The rest of the respondents apparently are in a wait-and-see mode. The general view is that if the trees grow well and the timber can be sold profitably, then most respondents would consider planting forest trees in new areas.

Table 17. Future plans to plant forest trees

Plantation characteristics

Species choice

For the last 10 years, the two most popular tree species have been teak and sentang. The choice was very much influenced by the promotion of these two species by government agencies and the private sector. Monocropping and mixed cropping are equally important. Of the 27 respondents, 22 percent planted teak only, 22 percent sentang only and 4 percent Maesopsis eminii only. The remaining 52 percent had plantations composed of at least two species (Table 18).

Table 18. Type of forest tree species planted

Other than expected high economic returns, there are three main reasons for choosing a specific type of forest tree species for planting. Of the six companies, three felt that the selected species were suitable for the land type. Among the 21 individual planters, seven said that RISDA advised them to plant the species. For the individual planters, other reasons given included advice from friends, relatives and agents who sold seedlings, and investment for children.

Area planted

In 2002, the total area planted with forest trees by the 27 respondents was 495 ha comprising 448.6 ha (91 percent) by companies and 46.7 ha (9 percent) by individuals (Table 19). An obvious characteristic of tree planting is the pattern of mono- and mixed cultivation among the respondents. Of the total 448.6 ha managed by the six companies, 27 percent is monocropped. Individual planters on the other hand do not appear to have a preference for either monocropping or mixed cropping (Table 19). Teak accounts for 346.4 ha (70 percent), Maesopsis eminii for 96 ha (19 percent), sentang 44.9 ha (9 percent) and other mixed forest species 8 ha (2 percent). The individual planters also intercropped teak with banana and tongkat ali, which is not practised by the companies.

Table 19. Area of forest trees planted (ha)

Planting year and spacing

All the respondents planted trees between 1990 and 2000 (Table 20). While one-quarter of the individual planters planted trees between 1993 and 1995, companies only did so in the beginning of 1996. There were two phases of planting, namely the 1993/95 period involving only the individual planters, and the 1996/2000 period involving both individual planters and companies. No one planted in 2001.

Table 20. Planting year of forest trees (ha)

The spacing selected was not uniform (Table 21). The respondents made their own decisions with regard to the planting distance. A good example is the individual planters who inter-cropped sentang and rubber in Malacca, encouraged by RISDA. Even though they attended the same briefing on forest tree planting, only two of them followed the same planting distance of 4 x 6.4 m.

Table 21.  Planting distance practised

Tree densities

Tree densities varied considerably. For single species plantations, the density was 1 696 trees/ha for teak, 1 337 trees/ha for sentang and 625 trees/ha for Maesopsis eminii. In mixed plantations, the planting density of teak was between 800 and 1 000 trees mixed with banana, oil palm or tongkat ali. When mixed with rubber, the average planting density for sentang was 145 trees/ha (Table 22). Frequently, strict planting densities were not followed. The actual planting density was also influenced by landscape features. In low-lying areas, fewer trees were planted to avoid flooding.

Table 22. Planting density (trees/ha)

*Planted on buffer zones of oil palm and rubber plantations. These include light hardwood and medium hardwood (kembang semangkok, meranti sarang punai, meranti tembaga, meranti melantai, meranti rambai daun, meranti kepong, merawan siput jantan and kempas) and heavy hardwood and medium hardwood (penaga, perah, kelat and kapur).

Previous crops

Of the 27 planters, 67 percent had planted rubber before converting the current area to forest trees (Table 23). The land of the remaining planters had been planted with oil palm (seven percent), fruit trees (11 percent) and other crops (15 percent). The conversion of rubber to forest trees was most obvious among the individual planters; this can be explained by labour shortages. Forest plantations are less labour intensive than rubber.

Table 23. Previous land use

Terrain slope, altitude and soil type

Most plantations were established on flat or gently sloping land (Table 24). In particular, individual planters preferred land with a gradient of 15 percent or less because most of them owned fairly flat land.

Table 24. Terrain slope

Most trees were planted at low elevations (Table 25). Seventy percent of the respondents planted on land below 100 m asl; another 22 percent planted on land between 100 and 300 m asl. Most individual planters owned land in the lowlands. This again is related to the location of smallholdings in lowland areas. Companies on the other hand, also planted trees above 500 m asl. This indicates that companies with widespread agricultural areas have allocated land at high altitudes to forest tree planting.

Table 25. Altitude of plantations

In general, forest trees are planted on three types of soil, namely sandy loam (18 percent), laterite (41 percent) and clay (41 percent) as indicated in Table 26.

Table 26. Soil types of forest tree land