Vast tracts of alleged forests are being sold online
3 February 2022 – The Rimba Disclosure Project (RDP), supported by Greenpeace Malaysia raised concerns over the likely conversion of forested lands which are being advertised for sale, which will result in Malaysia being “locked-into” further deforestation in the future, and which will exacerbate issues of biodiversity loss and land degradation, the climate crisis, and flooding
Investigations by RDP in 2021 identified and verified a number of 43,539 hectares of forested land purportedly for sale in the states of Perak, Selangor, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan through 28 listings on websites including Mudah.my, iProperty, PropertyGuru and Facebook.
These listings include land within forest reserves, Central Forest Spine habitat linkages and indigenous customary land. The vast majority of these listings are advertised for conversion to agriculture with a 99 year lease.