Development of Ranking for Sustainable Forest Management Criteria in Peninsular Malaysia by using the Method based on the Removal Effects of Criteria

Peninsular Malaysia has approximately 13.22 million acres of land, with approximately 5.69 million acres forested throughout the state. The forests of peninsular Malaysia will also produce millions of cubic metres of logs, sawn timber, plywood, veneer, and moulding by 2021. Because the forest produces so many resources, it also causes a slew of issues, such as illegal logging and flash floods. SFM takes a holistic approach to ensuring that forest operations provide social, environmental, and economic benefits, that competing needs are balanced, and that forest functioning is preserved and improved today and in the future. The goal of this research is to rank the criteria for three critical dimensions: environmental, economic, and social, that will affect the level of sustainability of forest management in Peninsular Malaysia. This study employs the Method Based on the Removal Effects of Criteria (MEREC) to identify the objective weight and rank all the criteria. The result shows that there are three criteria that have a big impact on all dimensions and another three criteria may not be included since they have no impact on the respective dimensions. With all conclusions, it shows that MEREC is a consistent and reliable method to be considered.