PERIKATAN Nasional should make it a priority to gazette Kedah’s Ulu Muda forest as a protected state park now that the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed Malaysia’s lack of food security, said the country’s oldest conservation group.

Besides being a major watershed that supplies water to Kedah, Penang and Perlis, the Ulu Muda forest is also critical to the Muda rice planting scheme known as the nation’s rice bowl.