Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the 40th meeting of the National Physical Planning Council, which he chaired today, had approved the master plan, which is an initiative to connect eight major forests located in Kedah, Perak, Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, Johor, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan.

“This is to protect forest areas within Peninsular Malaysia so that there will be a physical link that connects the forests in the Central Forest Spine areas.

“The master plan also identified 39 ecological linkages to connect forest areas or forest islands that were separated due to forest fragmentation,” he said in a statement.

He said the master plan would also reduce human-wildlife conflict by ensuring that wildlife corridors from one forest area to another would not be affected by development activities.

In addition, he said the implementation of the master plan and commitment from the federal and state governments would help the country achieve its pledge at the Rio Earth Summit 1992 to maintain at least 50% of its land mass under forest and tree cover.

Meanwhile, Ismail said the meeting also took note of the Report on the Status of Public Open Spaces in Peninsular Malaysia and Federal Territories 2020, which was prepared by the housing and local government ministry.

He said the meeting called on state governments, through their relevant agencies, to expedite the gazetting of public open spaces under Section 62 of the National Land Code.

“The total size of public open spaces in the peninsula and the federal territories is 23,433ha, but only 33%, or 7,662.6ha, are gazetted and 24% (5,738.4ha) are in the process of being gazetted, while the rest have not been gazetted,” he said.

The prime minister said the gazetting of the land would ensure that they would be preserved to function as public open spaces that could be used for leisure and recreation.

The government had also set a target of having 2ha of open space per 1,000 urban residents, he said.