KANGAR, Jan 12 (Bernama) -- Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim claims he has solid proof of illegal logging and land-clearing activities in Gua Musang, one of the causes for the heavy floods in Kelantan recently.

He said the illegal land-clearing was in black areas which had been undisturbed since the days of the emergency but had been cleared by certain quarters for some time now.

"I have solid proof that they were given the Temporary Occupancy Licence (TOL) to clear the land but the land-clearing has gone beyond the permitted areas. I also have information on who are doing all this.

"Among them are the big businessmen from neighbouring countries. I hope there is a law to take them to court," Shahidan told reporters after chairing a post-flood meeting with state government agencies here today.

He urged that barricades be installed on all roads leading into the forests and intruders be caught and appropriate action taken against them, while conditions imposed on loggers to plant three trees for every tree cut down.

Shahidan said discussions would also be held to appoint the Orang Asli as voluntary rangers.

"This might control the intrusions as the number of those involved in illegal logging is high and it has been happening for a long time, but no action has been taken against them" he said.

Shahidan said the federal government had discussed the illegal logging and land-clearing issues with the Kelantan government as part of efforts to resolve the problem of flooding in the state.

On the flooding in Perlis, he said initial assessments of the losses suffered by padi planters in an area of about 2,335 hectares were estimated at RM2 million and this information had been passed on to the relevant ministries to obtain aid.

"I am satisfied with the service given by the government agencies, non-government bodies and about 1,000 volunteers in Perlis who helped 445 families of flood victims last month, but preparations must be made to manage up to 20,000 flood victims," he said.

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Shahidan claims to have solid proof of illegal logging, land-clearing in Gua Musang

Court quashes land alienation by Sabah government, saying they failed to give sufficient notice to natives claiming native customary rights.

SANDAKAN: Sandakan High Court Judicial Commissioner Douglas Cristo Primus Sikayun has delivered a landmark decision in granting a declaration that the alienation of a parcel of land measuring 500 acres at Kampong Ansuan at Telupid by the Department of Lands and Surveys was null and void.

The Court ruled that the Department had failed to give sufficient notice of the land application to natives claiming native customary rights (NCR) under section 13 of the Sabah Land Ordinance.

The Judicial Commissioner declared that the Director of the Department of Lands & Surveys and the State Government of Sabah had a fiduciary duty to the natives of Sabah in safeguarding their native customary land.

Having considered the evidence adduced at the trial, the learned Judicial Commissioner declared that the native defendants had proved the native customary rights on the land claimed by them.

Under section 13 of the Sabah Land Ordinance, it is specifically provided that upon receipt of any application for unalienated country land, it shall be the duty of the Collector to publish a notice calling upon any claimant to NCR in such land, who is not yet in possession of a registered documentary title, to make or send in a statement of his claim within a date to be specified in the notice, the Court said. If no claim is made the land shall be dealt with as if no such rights existed.

As to the sources of NCR, the Judicial Commissioner referred to, amongst others, Article 9 of the British North Borneo Treaties 1881 which provides that all in the administration of justice to the people of Borneo or to any inhabitants thereof, careful regard shall always be had to the customs and laws of the class or tribe to which the parties belong especially with respect to holding, possession, transfer and disposition of lands and succession.

In 1995, the Department of Lands & Surveys approved and alienated to Sudi Kembang Sdn Bhd, the plaintiff in this suit, with 500 acres of land at Kampong Ansuan in Telupid and a land title in country lease for 99 years was issued to the company in 2001.

Sometime in 2004 when the company started site clearing and developing oil palm plantation in the land, the company found that a portion of the land measuring about 15 acres was being occupied and cultivated by the defendants late father Yahsu Linggis, who was planting oil palm in about 10 acres of the land.

In 2011, Sudi Kembang Sdn Bhd as plaintiff filed this writ action against the defendants Marsius and Alfeus at the Sandakan High Court seeking for an injunction to evict them from the land and claiming damages.

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Landmark ruling: Court rules in natives favour

land clearing pic movie 76C9A958 3DF2 43F7 BE53 7181B7617258

By: kendall and welch construction

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land clearing pic movie 76C9A958 3DF2 43F7 BE53 7181B7617258 - Video

Komatsu PC400LC-7 and D155A-3 Clearing Land
A 2006 Komatsu PC400LC-7 and a 2000 Komatsu D155A-3 clearing trees and establishing an access road to a new surface mine.

By: PAmining

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Komatsu PC400LC-7 and D155A-3 Clearing Land - Video

GEORGE TOWN, Jan 8 (Bernama) -- The DAP-led Penang government had never issued approvals for landowners to carry out land clearing activities in Bukit Laksamana, Balik Pulau here.

The state's Local Government, Traffic Management and Flood Mitigation Committee chairman Chow Kon Yeow said that to the contrary, notices to stop such works had been issued to the landowners since Oct 2014.

"We are in the process of taking legal action against landowners for clearing land without permission," he told reporters after the swearing-in ceremony of new members of the Penang Municipal Council, here today.

On Tuesday, it was reported that land clearing activities on hills in the state was still going on with the latest incident detected in Bukit Laksamana and Bukit Batu Itam in Balik Pulau.

Chow said the approval for land clearing activities and approval for the plan in Bukit Batu Itam was issued in 2007.

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Penang never approved land clearing in Bukit Laksamana

Native vegetation codes irk both environmental and farm groups.

Proposed loosening of land-clearing codes by the O'Farrell government will allow NSW farmers to slash, burn and rip will little oversight, environmental groups claim.

Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner and Environment Minister Robyn Parker on Thursday unveiled for public comment the first three self-assessable codes for clearing native vegetation.

The codes - for managing invasive native species, thinning native vegetation and clearing paddock trees in cultivated areas will help ensure we strike the balance between conservation and efficient agricultural management, Mr Stoner said.

This places trust in landholders to manage their property sustainably while maintaining environmental standards.

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Environmental groups, though, say the codes permit the use of chains dragged by bulldozers and blade ploughs that run counter to the recommendations in the Native Vegetation Regulation Review completed a year ago by agricultural consultant Joe Lane.

Self-assessable clearing should only include methods such as burning or clearing individual plants with nil to minimal disturbance to soil and groundcover, Mr Lane's review said.

The codes will obviously lead to a lot more destructive land-clearing when we need to be protecting [native vegetation] as much as possible and moving to a more sustainable agriculture - not slash, burn and rip, said Jeff Angel, director of the Total Environment Centre.

Pepe Clarke, chief executive officer of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, said the prospect of large-scale clearing creates a substantial environment risk while placing landholders at risk of breaking laws if their self-assessment proves to be erroneous.

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Native vegetation codes open way for destructive clearing: environmental groups

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Attrition: Afghanistan Leads The World

January 7, 2015: Despite a tremendous mine clearing effort in Afghanistan, the country still suffers over 900 landmine casualties a year, nearly half of them children (those under age 18). The mine clearing effort greatly increased after the Taliban were driven from power in 2001. But in the last six years the Taliban have been increasingly planting more mines themselves and attacking or scaring away mine clearing teams.

Until 2006 Afghanistan was making great strides in getting rid of millions of land mines (most of them Russian and Chinese Cold War vintage stuff). In 2001 over 1,600 Afghans a month were being killed or wounded by all these mines but by 2006 the losses were cut in half. But since then the growing use of landmines by the Taliban and drug gangs has increased annual mine casualties to nearly a thousand. By 2006 17 years of demining efforts had cleared nearly a thousand square kilometers mines. At the time that was believed to be 70 percent of the mined areas. Up until 2007 the Taliban and drug gangs tended to leave the deminers alone. But then new minefields began to show up, planted by the Taliban and drug gangs to protect drug (opium and heroin) operations. This happened despite the fact that most Afghans wanted nothing more to do with landmines and just want to see them all gone. Most of the people actually clearing the mines are Afghans, and some have been at it for since the 1990s. Foreign aid groups and governments provide equipment, training and money for salaries and supplies. The biggest supplier of such aid has been the United States.

Landmines were outlawed by an international treaty in 1999, but this mainly applied to nations that don't have landmines or don't have any reason to use them. Islamic terrorists, rebels and drug gangs have not signed the international agreement and find the mines a cheap way to control civilian populations and slow down anyone coming after them. It takes more time, money, and effort to remove these mines than to place them. Most countries needing to get rid of mines seek to speed up mine clearing by training local volunteers to be part of the part-time mine clearing teams. The government provides training, pay (usually pretty good by local standards), health and life insurance and other benefits. When a new bunch of mines are found (usually by an animal coming across them), the team gets to work.

Despite efforts like this it has not been a promising time for those seeking to enforce the ban on the use of landmines. In the last few years Israel, Libya, Syria, North Korea, Iran, and Myanmar (Burma) planted new mines. In addition, there are three countries still manufacturing landmines (India, Myanmar, and Pakistan). Arms dealers will still provide large quantities of Russian and Chinese landmines, many of them Cold War surplus. China, Russia, and other communist nations were major producers of landmines during the Cold War. The mines were produced not just for use against potential enemies but to aid in keeping the borders closed and preventing citizens from leaving these unpleasant dictatorships.

There has been a growing list of outlaw organizations that are ignoring the 1999 Ottawa Convention to ban landmines. The Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan are manufacturing landmines in primitive workshops and using them against Pakistani, Afghan, and foreign soldiers, as well as Afghan civilians who refuse to support the Islamic terrorist group.

Despite the 1999 treaty, landmines are still causing over 5,000 casualties a year worldwide. About twenty percent of the victims are killed and 90 percent of them are males. This is largely because men are more likely to be out in the bush or working farmlands that still contain mines. A third of the casualties are security personnel (police and soldiers). Afghanistan leads the world in landmine casualties. Most landmine losses these days occur in countries where rebels and criminals are still using landmines, either factory made ones from countries that did not sign the Ottawa Convention or locally made models.

Landmines are simple to make and workshops are easily set up to do it. There's no shortage of mines out there, despite the fact that in the first few years after the 1999 Ottawa Convention was signed over 25 million landmines, in the arsenals of over fifty nations, were destroyed. But these nations were not users and rarely sold them either. For those who want landmines, they find a way to obtain and use them. The Taliban are the latest group to demonstrate this. Leftist rebels in Colombia have been making their own mines for years now, as have Islamic and communist rebels in the Philippines. There are believed to be over 100 million mines still in the ground and at least as many in military warehouses for future use.

The 1999 Ottawa Convention was supposed to have reduced land mine casualties among civilians. It hasn't worked because the owners of the largest landmine stockpiles, Russia and China, refused to sign. Chinese land mines are still available on the international arms black market. China is believed to have the largest stockpile, mostly of anti-personnel mines. The old ones are often sold before they become worthless. But even these mines, which go for $5-10 each, are too expensive for many of the criminal organizations that buy them. Land mines, competitive with the factory built ones from China, can be built for less than three dollars each. You can find all the technical data you need on the Internet. On the plus side these locally made anti-personnel mines tend to be less powerful than factory made ones and thus the mine boots provide even better protection when the wearer encounters an locally made mine.

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Attrition: Afghanistan Leads The World

Highway 162 Land
Before land clearing.

By: Nathaniel Cabell

Originally posted here:
Highway 162 Land - Video

The Manchester Land Conservation Trust continues to make improvements to the 1-mile portion of the historic Cheney Rail Trail that it owns.

The most recent change came in November, when the group used a grant from the Manchester Road Race committee to buy 260 tons of stone dust to apply to the trail to make running, walking and biking it easier.

Built in 1869, the 2 1/4-mile Cheney Railroad was important to the success of the family's silk mills. Not only did the railroad transport raw materials into and finished goods out of town, it also served as a commuter train for workers living in the north end of Manchester.

The railroad ceased its passenger service in 1933 but continued a freight service into the 1980s.

"It's unique to Manchester," said Susan Barlow, a member of the Manchester Land Conservation Trust and the Manchester Historical Society.

On Jan. 31 at 1 p.m., Barlow will lead a free hike of the rail trail, which takes her imagination back to the time when workers would leave their north end homes and hop on the train to work at the silk mills.

"The fact that the Cheneys had their silk empire and needed this transportation and shelled out the money themselves, it's hard to imagine," Barlow said. "And it's right here in the center of town. It's really quite convenient. We know people use it."

The trail is now used by walkers, runners, hikers, parents with strollers, bikers and others, Barlow said. She even knows of a few people who use the trail to walk to work.

Doug MacGillvary, the land trust's stewardship chairman, managed the installation of the trail's stone dust. The trust acquired its portion of the trail in 2005 and immediately recognized its potential, MacGillvary said.

"When I first got on this board, we were looking at what potential there was for some of these pieces of property that we weren't [being realized]," MacGillvary said. "This was obviously one of them. It was two or three years of nothing happening. It didn't happen overnight. We've been working hard on this."

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Land Trust Continuing To Improve The Cheney Rail Trail

Tom McAllister cleared disused plot of land next to his recycling business The 68-year-old said he could not find legal owner in government records But lawyers said patch belongs to Lord Home, son of Alec Douglas-Home Judge ruled in Lord Home's favour after he took Mr McAllister to court

By Stephanie Linning for MailOnline

Published: 14:34 EST, 6 January 2015 | Updated: 20:40 EST, 6 January 2015

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A pensioner has lost a bitter legal battle with a multi-millionaire Tory peer over a patch of land next to his recycling yard that he has used for more than 17 years.

Tom McAllister, 68, said he decided to clear the disused plot, which was used as a dumping ground, after he was unable to find the legal owner in government records.

But lawyers insisted the land in Rigside, Lanarkshire, belonged to the estate of David Douglas-Home, son of ex-Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home, and took legal action against Mr McAllister.

Tom McAllister, right, said he decided to clear the disused plot, which was used as a dumping ground, after he was unable to find the legal owner in government records. Lawyers said it belonged to Lord Home (left)

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Rigside pensioner loses legal battle with millionaire Lord Home