Selangor Aims To Regazette Kuala Langat Forest Reserve By March 2022

---

The Selangor state government aims to regazette the Kuala Langat (North) forest into a permanent reserve by the first quarter of 2022, according to Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari.
This comes after the state today gave its nod to the East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) project to go with the proposed northern alignment, which will cut through another portion of the state instead of the forest.
However, the regazettement would still leave out a portion of the forest, which Amirudin said will be kept for possible continuity of the ECRL, dubbed as the Seremban Bypass.
This is on top of another small plot that Selangor has already reserved to compensate for an Orang Asli community.
"Hopefully we can regazette the whole forest reserve by next year, as early as first quarter next year.
"And of course we need further discussion especially to understand and to realign for the Seremban Bypass, as mentioned by the minister.
"Of course the Seremban Bypass will cross the same area as the Southern Alignment, so we want to verify first again.
"And of course, there's a guarantee from the government there will be no development for the Kuala Langat Forest Reserve," he told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur today.
The press conference was held after a ceremony where Amirudin announced the state government's decision to approve the Northern Alignment, which will begin in Gombak and cut through Serendah, Puncak Alam, and Kapar before ending at Port Klang.
During the event, Transport Minister Wee Ka Siong stated that his ministry would consider the Southern Alignment in its future development plan for the Seremban Bypass.
According to him, it would involve continuing the ECRL on the same route that Selangor had wanted which goes up to Seremban city in neighbouring Negeri Sembilan.

Kuala Langat forest
Amirudin told reporters that he is confident the re-gazettement would cover "easily 90 percent" from the original gazette plan.
He said the portions to be excluded is so that they would not need to go through another round of de-gazettement later when the time comes to develop the Seremban Bypass.
"So the big portion of development... we just announced our commitment (that there will be) no more development for the area.
"I am sure... I guess 80 percent or maybe 90 percent, easily 90 percent from the original early plan of the gazette will be (in the) re-gazettement again.
"But we need further discussion. No point we gazette and then we have to de-gazette again.
"Because the process to gazette and degazette, we have to to go townhall meeting, and also public hearing as stated in our law for gazettement and degazettement," Amirudin said.
The Selangor state government previously disagreed with the Northern Alignment, as they prefered the ECRL to go through another proposal called the Southern Alignment which traverses through Hulu Langat, Kuala Langat, Bangi, and Putrajaya before the Port Klang terminus.
The state has also de-gazetted a total of 536.7ha from the forest reserve, which included a portion that it planned to use for the Southern Alignment, and for development projects, among others.
The state in September changed its mind and scrapped the development plan for the forest area after it received widespread criticism.
However, Amirudin earlier this month told reporters the state was yet to carry out a re-gazettement exercise as they needed to determine the area to regazette, pending discussion with Putrajaya on the ECRL. - Mkini

---