SELANGOR Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari has dismissed claims by the Kuala Langat Orang Asli that documents proving their ownership of land in the Northern Forest Reserve exist.

He told a press conference today that state government records showed the land there is only “foraging land” for the Orang Asli.

“How can there be a black and white document (of their ownership)?

“The only black and white there is, is for roaming and foraging land for the Orang Asli, as far as we know,” he said at the Selangor government building in Shah Alam today.

The state government’s plans to degazette 930ha in the Kuala Langat Northern Forest Reserve to make way for a mixed-development project has ignited a storm of protests, as the reserve is the last remaining patch of forest for Orang Asli in the area. There are four villages with some 2,000 Temuan people who depend on it for food and their way of life.

Amirudin was asked about a government gazette in 1927, which states that about 7,200ha within the Kuala Langat and Tg Dua Belas districts was awarded to the Orang Asli by the state’s ruler then, Sultan Abdul Samad Tengku Abdullah.

The land had been given to the Orang Asli as a reward for the services of one of their ancestors who had served in the sultan’s guard, according to Rahman Pahat, the headman or tok batin of three villages in the area.

Rahman had also told The Malaysian Insight that when the Orang Asli took the documents to the Kuala Langat district office, they were told that part of the land they claimed was theirs overlapped with state-owned land.

However, Amirudin said that the Orang Asli villages there, which covered 423ha, would not be affected by the proposal.

“The Orang Asli villages are not involved and were taken out of the plan to degazette the forest reserve.

“The Orang Asli area of 423ha will remain within the forest reserve and be kept as their villages and roaming areas.”

The Selangor menteri besar also said the plan to degazette the forest has not been finalised, and is still at the proposal stage.

He said the state government will only make a decision after all procedures are followed, including holding public hearings.

Objections to the proposal will be received until March 5, he added, stressing that Selangor is “the only state government that bothers to hold public hearings”.

“So whoever the experts are, and civil societies, they can air their views.”

The March 5 deadline is 30 days after the Selangor Forestry Department’s notice in a major newspaper inviting stakeholders in the Kuala Langat district to voice their objects.

By state law, public opinion must be sought before any exercise to degazette a forest reserve. – February 20, 2020.