AS development director of Sime Darby Plantations, my main job was handling consultancies for third-party clients. But sometimes the group would also give me assignments.
Unlike working for clients, these did not bring in any fees, but one assignment nearly got me a different kind of work.
It was a time in the early 1990s when interest in planting fast-growing trees was on the rise, and the company wanted a feasibility study. As Sarawak still had a lot of jungle, it was agreed that this was the place for me to go.
I had taken Leow Kok Yuan on the flight to Sibu, where we were going to start work. Leow was adept with figures, and his computer could work out any project as long as I gave him the numbers. He would key them in, but not before asking me a lot of questions.
He was cautious and often tested and tempered my assumptions. I liked the way he could defend his figures when we faced the people at the top.
Of course, coming from the top, the idea was quickly adopted by all whom we went to see, including the head of logging for Sime Darby. He was managing a concession upriver at Batang Baleh, up Rajang River, and I had heard about him.
He was Ross Ibbotson, a man with many years of experience in the logging industry. He had also planted softwoods in Sabah.
I did not meet Ibbotson until a few days later. However, Leow and I were warmly welcomed by his staff – all young and alert Foochow girls. They offered us coffee and cakes, and from the high floor, I had a chance to take in the wonderful scenery of the Rajang River, with longboats coming in and sawmills across the river working hard.
Leow asked for the files on planting softwood trees. Softwoods grew fast, and I had earlier seen the forests of acacia and albizia in Sabah. They grew well, as did the gmelina. All these trees had
long fibre and were suited for making woodchips.
It took about three days for Ibbotson to come back from Batang Baleh, a tributary of the Rajang River. He was a stout, short figure, packed with energy, and he did not waste any time.
“I would recommend that you use acacia mangium. Even on poor soils, you can get a decent girth increment each year. You can harvest at year 10, and you don’t have to replant. The stumps grow new shoots that can be harvested again 10 years later. The woodchips from the logs go to Japan to produce paper.”
Leow waited at his keyboard for some figures to be mentioned. Ibbotson went on: “You may need about 100,000ha, planted over 10 years. Your problem is finding a location with that kind of size.”
He stopped to look at Leow and me and turned to the map of Sarawak on the wall.
“It would be here at Tatau or a bit further inside at Tubau, not too hilly for the work we would want to do.”
That evening, he invited us to dinner at a restaurant in a private room, but he had to answer questions from Leow.
Ibbotson was happy to give his attention to Leow although his wife
had arrived only that afternoon from London. In any case, he did not seem to have much to say to her.
He had only one day left with us in his office before he said he had problems upriver and rushed back up the Rajang River. He said he had to carry out some logging by helicopter where the slope was too steep.
Leow and I stayed back another day with help from the girls, and Leow invited them to lunch. Somewhere along the way, I heard that Mrs Ibbotson had caught a flight back to London.
On the flight back, I looked down to see where the plantation was likely to be. Sarawak was fast catching up on planting but with oil palm. It would be
a change if I was to run a forest plantation.
I imagined myself on a horse, riding through the trees each day to check which trees would need thinning and which could be left until harvest time. The scene ran in my head, and I wished it would come true.
It was therefore more reason for me to work carefully to the last detail. To be sure, I went to Mount Gambier in Australia and Rotorua in New Zealand to see if the radiata pine would be suitable, and then to Seattle to see the logging operations of Douglas fir by Weyerhaeuser at White River.
I left again to visit the plantations of Eucalyptus in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Leow stayed back to work at his desk. At the presentation, the bosses approved his numbers without demur.
Eventually, a meeting was set with the head of government in Kuching, and I accompanied Tunku Tan Sri Ahmad Tunku Yahya, the head of Sime Darby, and finance director Martin Berry. Tunku Ahmad did all the talking and placed a proposal on the table, and even when it was time to leave, Berry and I did not have to say a word.
In the end, we did not get the project. Perhaps the land available was not big enough.
I was disappointed as I could still see myself at the centre of the action, on a horse or driving a Range Rover. In the office, Leow would be in charge of his staff, whom I would help to select. Who would not want to head a business like that and in the middle of a land of legendary beauty like Sarawak?
However, later on, rumour had it that Ibbotson was also aiming for the role. If that were true, he certainly would have been a formidable rival, adding yet another adventure to his life.
I smiled when I heard this. Who could blame him?
The writer has extensive experience in the management of oil palm plantations.
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