PUTRAJAYA will check if Kelantan has exceeded its annual felling ration (CTT), Energy and Natural Resources Minister Takiyuddin Hassan said.

He said the federal government is empowered to reduce the quota of states if they are found to have exceeded it.

“All states are given a CTT. We will check whether Kelantan has exceeded its quota. States that do (exceed), can have their quota reduced,” the PAS lawmaker told reporters in Dungun, Terengganu today.

Logging in Kelantan has been in the spotlight recently following the mauling of Orang Asli villagers by tigers.

It led to the Kelantan Forestry Department director Abdul Khalim Abu Samah defending logging in the state and denying that it had caused the tiger’s natural habitat to shrink and drive the animal out to populated areas.

Khalim went as far as to say, wrongly quoting a report, that deforestation could even be good for the tiger population.

He was slammed for his remarks by the public on social media as well as environmentalists.

WWF-Malaysia, which had authored a report on the subject, clarified that tigers only benefited from “selectively logged forests” that adhered to sustainable practices, and not indiscriminate logging. 

Its 2009 study had been on the population density of tigers in selectively logged forests. The practice involved cutting only selected trees in a section of forest, instead of all trees in an entire swathe of forest.

Earlier this month, Takiyuddin said chief ministers and menteris besar were involved in setting their respective CCT together with the prime minister under the National Land Council.

He said this in response to Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar Nik Mohd Amar Nik Abdullah’s claim that the state government had no power to determine its logging quota.

Commenting on Khalim’s gaffe, Takiyuddin said “the topic is still being debated”.

“The director was referring to selectively logged forests,” he said.

“If all logging follows the CTT (set by the National Land Council), then it can benefit the ecosystem, including tigers.” – January 27, 2022.