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All forest workers must be certified
The Sarawak Timber Association (STA) has called on its Satoshi Hirayama
members to accelerate the training of their forest workers
to ensure compliance with the Forests (Trained Workmen)

Rules, 2015.
STA chairman, Henry Lau, said all forest workers must
undergo training and obtain Forest Worker Certificates to
support sustainable forest management (SFM).
According to Lau, these certificates are now mandatory for
license renewals and approvals for the Permit to enter Coupe,
as required by the Director of Forests. Lau also highlighted
that, since the skills sets offered by the STA Training (STAT)
were registered with the Human Resources Development

Corporation, members should take advantage of STAT’s dimensions such as hollow, bent and other defects. This is
training provider status. critical in commercial trading as well as royalty payments to
Looking ahead, Lau said STAT planned to expand its training the government.
programmes significantly in the coming years to offer more
opportunities for skill development to meet evolving industry Research on evidence-based forest governance
standards and regulatory requirements. A technical committee from the Sarawak Forest Department
(FDS) recently met at the National Institute for Environmental

Training for log scalers and log pond supervisors Studies (NIES) in Tsukuba, Japan. The meeting marked a step
A total of 34 participants comprising log scalers, log pond forward in the bilateral collaboration between the Department
supervisors and timber industry stakeholders participated in and NIES to advance research for evidence-based forest
a three-day Log Scaling Course in Sibu organised by the governance. The committee brought together experts in
Sarawak Forest Department (SFD) and STA Training (STAT), forestry, geospatial science, environmental legislation, forest
a training arm of the Sarawak Timber Association. engineering and research technology.
The course provided critical aspects of log scaling, covering The primary objective of the collaboration was to assess
measurement techniques, log tagging, identifying species, research findings and data presented by NIES researchers
recording log details into log specification form and submitting to guide Sarawak’s policy decisions in line with the Sarawak

applications to SFD for royalty assessment, as well as other Premier’s vision of a green economy.
log movement activities along the Sarawak Timber Chain of The Japanese researchers presented papers on a wide range
Custody in accordance with the Forests Ordinance 2015 and of topics, including advanced forest monitoring technologies
associated requirements. and sustainable management practices.
During the training, the trainers imparted participants In 2024, NIES conducted several capacity-building programmes
with necessary knowledge and skills on log scaling in both for Sarawak civil servants and industry stakeholders and these
classroom settings and valuable on-site hands-on practice. included training on tree DNA analysis and Light Detection

Participants were taught accurate measurement of log and Ranging (LiDAR) technology, a powerful tool for forest
dimensions, including volume calculation for various log mapping and modelling.