The Pahang Forestry Department has stressed that no approval has been given for logging activities at the Bera Lake Ramasar site in the state.

Its director Datuk Mohd Paiz Kamaruzaman said claims that such approval was given was not true and the fact was that approval given was for land belonging to the state government that was not under the Ramsar site.

"The licence given was a 142-hectare site involving government land. The Forestry Department will monitor the logging activities closely to ensure the Ramsar site is not encroached," he told Bernama.

Mohd Paiz was commenting on a claim by an NGO on Facebook that approval had been given for logging at 1,000 hectares at the Ramsar site.

A Ramsar Site is a wetland site designated of international importance under the Ramsar Convention. The Convention on Wetlands, known as the Ramsar Convention, is an intergovernmental environmental treaty established in 1971 by UNESCO, and coming into force in 1975 (source: Wikipedia). -- BERNAMA