THE Civil Society Organisations (CSO) group – made up of 13 entities including WWF-Malaysia, Land Empowerment Animals People, Southeast Asia Rainforest Research Partnership, HUTAN, Danau Girang Field Centre, Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre, Sabah Environmental Trust, PACOS Trust, Pertubuhan Kota Kita Sabah, Society for Equality, Respect and Trust for All Sabah, Kelab Belia Generasi Pemenang Kampung Tempasuk, Undi Sabah and Sabah Human Rights Centre – strongly urge the Sabah government to clarify its position on the contentious Nature Conservation Agreement (NCA) in order to avoid further confusion on the matter.

There has been talk that the NCA will proceed although it had been declared earlier as unenforceable by the Sabah Attorney-General Nor Asiah Mohd Yusof.

The serious problems regarding the NCA that was highlighted previously still stands today, and aspects of the agreement require further scrutiny.

Firstly, the project’s proponents have not engaged with the communities which may be impacted by the NCA. A project of this type would normally be expected to include a robust Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) process, but to date no such process appears to have been initiated.

This is a cause for major concern, particularly given the scale of the NCA. It has been stated that the NCA will operate within 2 million hectares of Sabah’s network of protected forests, many of which are important for the provision of livelihoods and general well-being of rural and forest-dependent communities. The lack of consultation with experts and stakeholders have also resulted in numerous questions on the NCA.

Secondly, the NCA does not appear to conform to the basic requirements of any internationally recognised carbon financing standard. Aside from the central importance of FPIC, such standards require strict compliance with the principle of “additionality”. This means project activities must result in carbon benefits that are additional to the “business as usual” scenario.

It has been repeatedly stated that the NCA will operate in forests that are already protected – hence it is unclear how the NCA would achieve additionality as the business-as-usual scenario is conservation.

The NCA indicates that additionality could be achieved through large-scale forest restoration. However, it is far from certain that restoration activities in existing protected areas would meet the additionality criteria.

Further, forest restoration at scale and in remote areas is prohibitively expensive and difficult to implement. Forest restoration in the case of the NCA would also almost certainly not be cost effective as the price of any carbon sold via the project would unlikely meet the cost of restoration.

It should also be noted that projects that are not compliant with internationally recognised carbon standards are generally unsuccessful and do not generate saleable carbon.

Finally, the NCA operates on the basis of a highly unequal agreement – with all project development and implementation costs controlled by the state government.

Given concerns over additionality and the applicability, practicality as well as the cost of the restoration activities proposed under the NCA, it is unclear if the agreement would generate any income for the state.

The CSO group therefore requests clarification on these key concerns:

1. How are the project owners engaging with local communities and has a FPIC process been initiated?
2. Do proponents of the NCA intend to seek compliance with an internationally recognised carbon standard? If so, which standard and what is the timeframe for project development?
3. What are the anticipated costs of project development and operation? In particular what are the cost estimates for the proposed forest restoration activities?

Ultimately, the lack of transparency continues to be worrying as we simply do not have enough information on the agreement to determine its impact on the state and its people in the long run.

If the NCA is to go forward, there is an urgent need for the government to make public the details of the agreement and address the questions that have been brought up. – July 27, 2023.

* Statement by the Civil Society Organisations group, an alliance of 13 entities advocating environmental issues.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.