Armizan Mohd Ali, who is also the Papar Umno division youth head, said the fake news was accompanied with a video showing a line of lorries laden with logs being detained by forest department officers at Jalan Sapulut-Kalabakan in southern Sabah recently.

He said the logs were felled in legal operations in Kalabakan and Keningau, and the lorries had stopped at the forest department’s weigh station for inspection.

“Some of the lorries were issued summons for offences related to transport procedures such as overloading and incorrect log sizes,” he said in a statement today.

“The critics should have welcomed the enforcement action but instead they spread fake news based on erroneous interpretation of the video.”

Armizan said the enforcement action showed Sabah’s commitment to reduce its reliance on revenue from timber logging which was unsustainable.

To promote a more sustainable ecosystem, he said the Sabah government had gazetted 52% of the state as forest reserve, and increased the Totally Protected Areas (TPAs) from 11% or 850,000 hectares in 2004 to 26% or 1.9 million hectares last year.

“The TPAs in Sabah are far larger than those in the United States (comprising 14%) and Australia (15%). In the next five years, Sabah targets to increase TPAs to 30%.

“Sabah is also stepping up the programme to replant logged over forests, which now total more than 700,000 hectares.”

Armizan said forest management in Sabah was recognised as the best in Malaysia because dependency on timber revenue had been reduced from 85% in the 1970s to about 13% today.

He said Sabah had succeeded in transforming its economy by diversifying its sources of revenue without suffering a decline in income.

“In 1972, when the state depended almost totally on timber logging, the revenue came to RM172 million. On the other hand in 2016, revenue surged to over RM3.5 billion, with only 13% derived from logging.”