“The story of illegal timber trade is a story of violence, killings, corruption and money-laundering.” -Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The Great Flood of 2014 in Kelantan caused around 21 deaths and displaced over 200,000 people. Massive logging, or more precisely, the illegal timber trade activities in the eastern state, was suspected to be a galvanising factor in bringing about the floods. Therefore, illegal timber trade has evolved from a story of environmental disaster, into a heart-wrenching story of displacement of people, lost of livelihood and devastation of farm lands and properties. It is also a story about corruption, cronyism, poor governance, lack of enforcement, lack or no cooperation between state and federal agencies, lack of accountability and transparency and lack of policies to address the issue. In conjunction to the launch of C4’s Northern Unit, the Northern team has delved into the Kelantan logging issue, and attempted to tackle the challenges that plague both the administration and the common people.
The full research can be downloaded here (76 pages, 2.5mb). Bahasa Malaysia version can be downloaded here (52 ms, 1.8mb)
