KUALA LUMPUR: The government is reviewing the effectiveness of the Malaysian Greening Programme's 100 Million Tree-Planting Campaign.
Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said it was to ensure its positive impact on the environment.
"We have planted 58.52 million trees but we want to look at how effective it is because those who had planted the trees, were only involved in the planting.
"What happens to the trees after that, whether they suit their habitat and so on, have yet to be determined.
"We do not want this tree planting activity to become some sort of a 'greenwashing' without having any real and effective impact on the environment," he said when winding up the committee-level debate on the Supply Bill 2023 for the ministry in Dewan Rakyat today (March 16).
On other developments, he said Malaysia and Brunei were working on signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to receive the results of marking and measuring the established international borders of both countries.
He said as of today (March 16), the Survey and Mapping Department had carried out marking and measuring for 128.45km along the countries' borders, with the remaining land border distance expected to be completed in the coming year.
As for the status of the Malaysia-Indonesia international border marking, Nik Nazmi said the department had carried out marking and measurement for 1,943km out of the total distance of 2,063km of international land border.
"There are still areas that have not yet been finalised involving a distance of 119.9km, in which there are seven problem areas or outstanding boundary problems (OBP) with three OBPs in the Sabah-North Kalimantan sector over a distance of 44km and four OBPs in the Sarawak-West Kalimantan sector with a distance of 52.9km," he said.
Meanwhile, the Dewan Rakyat passed an allocation of RM1.67 billion for the ministry in the 2023 Budget at committee level through a majority voice vote after a debate by 20 members of parliament from the government and the opposition. --BERNAMA