Plantation Establishment Program
The Plantation Establishment Program involves the establishment, maintenance and protection of industrial tree plantations in accordance with the approved planting plan and work standards. Plantations are currently managed on a pulp wood regime.
The planting plan and work standards seek to ensure that quality plantations are grown while environmental impacts are mitigated through sound operating practices.
The following guiding principles are applied:
- Planted forests are established in areas where the natural forest has been degraded by earlier logging activities or shifting cultivation.
- Each forest management unit is established as a mosaic of acacia stands and conservation areas. The conservation areas will be undisturbed, or rehabilitated natural forest, and will include steep land, swamps, buffer zones along waterways, migration corridors, and areas that are representative of various kinds of forest ecosystem.
- The acacia stands will be established on State land that is not held by indigenous people under Native Customary Rights (NCR). Development on NCR land will take place only through voluntary participation in joint plantation ventures.
Cutting edge technologies and products in the field of remote sensing, ground survey and information systems are use to verify the location, extent and quality of completed work. These audits also ensure compliance with environmental performance standards.
After establishment, plantations are maintained and protected to ensure maximum value is recoverable at harvest age. The primary risks to plantations are fire, pest or disease outbreak and man-made disturbance. The key elements in protecting such vast areas are early detection and effective response.
To this end, a network of roads, fire towers and radio coverage allow roaming patrols and inspection teams to access all plantation areas and quickly communicate observations to the district offices. Although the fire risk is small, trained fire crews equipped with latest fire equipment are on standby during times of drier weather.