Will Controversial Land be De-reserved For a Fourth Time?

On Wednesday, Robert Lopez, the owner of Hummingbird Group Limited, a furniture manufacturing business, turned to the media to express his grievances with a group he identified as Hill Farming Cooperation. According to Lopez, his employees were met by a group of men from the cooperation drawing survey lines on property in the Maya Mountain Forest Reserve and act which he believes is encroaching on the long-term sustainable forestry license he acquired in 2022. Percival Cho was hired as a consultant by Lopez’s company to ensure adequate compliance with the regulations from the Forest Department. We spoke with Cho to learn more information on the matter.

 

Percival Cho, Consultant, Science for Sustainability Ltd.

“So the Maya Mountain Forest Reserve was a reserve declared a few decades ago.It is set aside as a reserve for the production of timber. So it’s it’s the word reserve is used in that context of  timber production, right? Reserve in other contexts can also mean a wildlife reserve or a conservation reserve. But in this context, it’s for production of timber. It was amended in 2007. There was about a thousand acres that was dereserved. And this was done by the government. It went through the process. The land was de reserved to provide lots, agricultural lots for villagers around the area. And that went through and so the reserve had a new boundary. So it got a little bit smaller. In 2015, a second de reservation occurred. Again, through following the process through the government. And this was also, the purpose of it was to provide agricultural parcels to nearby communities. And the land that was the reserved was the flatlands, what we call flatlands south of the main my mountain block. So this is  flatland. Seemingly it’s good for agriculture, but when you start to look at the soil quality and the, the nutrient levels and so forth in the soil. You realize quickly it’s not the best agricultural soils, but it’s indicative of the time we’re in, where most of the good agricultural soils have been cleared already planted for citrus or other crops. And any new demand for agricultural land would be going into the, what we call hinterlands, up in the lesser quality soils. And that’s what we’re looking at the moment. So it’s a resource constraint.”

 

Britney Gordon

“To your knowledge, the group that came in and started drawing up survey lines, what portion of it were they looking to section off? And how do you feel that this affects, the license that your client has?”

 

Percival Cho

“Yeah, so there’s still a portion of flat land available within the reserve. It’s very well stocked with timber on the timber that’s coming out from their sustainable produced.  So there’s quite a lot of studies that goes into producing timber in that context. So this isn’t a traditional logging operation where people are going and cut trees. So so it’s well studied. All the trees are counted, and there’s a sustainability analysis that’s carried out to determine exactly how many trees can be cut.  And so in this flat area, I think, is where the people who recently went in to look at surveying or parceling off the area. They’re focusing on the flat lands, the remaining flat lands within the reserve. Again, it’s not the best agricultural land and from experience, whenever these de reservations occur, yes, the initial intention is to provide the nearby villages with land, but so it turns out that you get, it’s a land economy we live in, so people sell land,  and, wealthier people come in and buy three, four, five, six parcels, and eventually you have these huge farms. Owned by people who were not in the village and then it creates in a situation where people need land again. It’s a repeating revolving situation, and it can only lead to further erosion of the reserve.”

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