Decrease in Malay reserve land in Kedah, Perak and Kuala Lumpur

KUALA LUMPUR - The amount of Malay reserve land in the three states have recorded a decrease between the year 2021 and 2022.

The Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change (NRECC) Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said the three states were Kedah, Perak and the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur.

"The amount of Malay reserve land in Kedah decreased from 721,888.93 hectares to 716,537.28 hectares.

"While in Perak, the number had decreased from 953,42.67 hectares to 953,40.87 hectares and from 1,003.56 hectares to 99.48 hectares for Kuala Lumpur," he said.

He said this in response to a question from Datuk Seri Dr Ismail Abd Mutallib (PN-Maran) who had asked him to state the original area of Malay Reserve Land according to states in Peninsular Malaysia and the government's plan to overcome the issue of the decreasing areas.

However, Nik Nazmi said the overall amount of Malay reserve land has not decreased and the losses recorded were not a lot.

He said the gazetted area of Malay reserve land up until Dec 31, 2022 was 4,996,406.42 hectares.

"There is an increase of 0.67 percent compared to 4,963,190.8 hectares in 2021.

"Looking from this viewpoint, there is no losses and the state has taken two approaches, to either replace the exact area size or sometimes based on strategic value, where the area might be different but it holds the same value.

"These factors are taken into account when replacing these lands, so there is no need for a white paper over the matter," he added.

He also said that detailed information about the cancellation and replacement of the land in the states were recorded by each respective state authorities.

He said this is in line with the provision of Article 89 of the Federal Constitution which protects the Malay reserve land so that the size of the land will not be reduced in the event of cancellation.

"The state authorities should replace the cancelled area with other lands of the same type and size," he said.