NGOs get stay order against Selangor govt’s degazettement of reserve land – Free Malaysia Today, Aug 2022

NGOs get stay order against Selangor govt’s degazettement of reserve land – Free Malaysia Today, Aug 2022

Our much loved Shah Alam Community Forest was highlighted by Malaysia’s English daily, Free Malaysia Today on 11th August 2022.

PETALING JAYA: The Shah Alam High Court has granted two environmental NGOs an interim stay against the Selangor government’s degazettement of a piece of land at the Bukit Cherakah forest reserve.

The NGOs are seeking a judicial review to challenge the legality of the degazettement of 406ha, or roughly the size of 1,000 football fields, in the reserve.

Lim Teck Wyn of the Shah Alam Community Forest Society (SACF) and Damien Thaman Divean of Khazanah Alam Malaysia (Peka) filed the application in the High Court last week.

They named the Selangor government, its executive councillors, the directors of the state forestry department, and the Petaling land and mines department as the respondents.

Rajesh Nagarajan, Sachpreetraj Singh Sohanpal and Arun Ganesh Boopalan, the lawyers representing the two NGOs, confirmed to FMT that an interim stay order had been granted by judge Shahnaz Sulaiman after a hearing today.

“This means the forest is safe for now,” Rajesh said.

“No one can log the forest, chop down its trees or develop the land until the leave application is heard.”

He said the leave application for a judicial review of the degazettement would be heard on Sept 28.

The NGOs said they believe the decision to degazette the area was made 22 years ago and was, therefore, “stale”.

They argued that it was also illegal for the state government to “backdate” the gazette notification issued on May 5 this year by the Selangor forestry department to refer to the decision of the state executive council in 2000.

They said the state government should have held a public inquiry, as stipulated under the National Forestry Act (Amendment) Enactment 2011.

Read more on Free Malaysia Today here.

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