Application of remote sensing in forest resources management and development in Malaysia

Abstract

Malaysia comprises a land area of 33 million ha. with a greater part of it still under dense tropical rainforest; the proportion of forest land being higher in Sabah and Sarawak than in Peninsular Malaysia. The total forest land is estimated to be 62.1% or 20.5 million ha. with 6.5 million ha. in Peninsular Malaysia, 4.6 million ha. in Sabah and 9.4 million ha. in Sarawak. Of the 20.5 million ha. of forested land, 17.8 million ha. is Dipterocarp forest while the remaining 2.1 million ha. and 0.6 million ha. being swamp and mangrove forests respectively. The Dipterocarp forest which represents 86.8% of the total forest land, is characterised by the predominance of the family Dipterocarpaceae with many of the species of the genera Anisoptera, Dipeterocarpus, Dryobalanops, Hopea, Shorea and Parashorea. It has also been estimated that there are at least 3,000 species of trees with 890 of these species reaching exploitable sizes of at least 45 cm. diameter at breast height. Of these 890 species, a total of 408 have been introduced at one time or another to the international markets. In 1983, revenue generated from the production of 32.2 million m³ of roundlogs was 1,408 million ringgit, while the total export value of timber and timber products was 4,644 million ringgit or 14.1% of the total gross export earning of the country which was ranked second behind petroleum and petroleum products. For the same period, the forestry sector had also provided employment for not less than 135,000 persons.