Sabah Forestry Department / Noorziah Bigu

The establishment of The Forestry Department was originally formed in 1914 even though it has been proposed as early as 1883. The laws on forestry were modified in 1916 with the introduction of Ordinance No. 11 of 1916 'Timber and Jungle Produce' which defined for the first time the idea of 'forest reserve'. The first forest reserve in Sabah was Tuaran Timber Reserve which was gazetted on 6/4/1920. The oldest existing forest reserve is the Gomantong FR in the Lower Kinabatangan Floodplain. It was gazetted on 1st Oct 1925. In 1930, there were about 30,066.8 ha of forest reserves and communal forests, approximately 0.37% of the total area of Sabah. During those times, the main purposes to gazette forest reserves were mainly for: a) protection from timber exploitation, b) preservation of natural forest types (for e.g. mangroves),c) protection against soil erosion, and water catchments. Forests which intended for timber extraction including mangroves were called 'licensed areas'. After the Second World War, the first steps were taken towards a complete forest inventory and forest classification. In 1948, the Forest Policy, which the improvement to the Forest Ordinance of 1936, was officially accepted by the Government and after that, forest reserves classified internally into 4 classes of forest reserves, namely Class 1 (Protection), Class 2 (Commercial), Class 3 (Domestic) and Class 4 (Amenity)within the Forestry Department by 1949.Thus, licensed areas or concessions were also regarded as forest reserves although internally classified as commercial production forests.