PESAMA enjoys a constant supply of logs from a permanent concession of 20,243 hectares of prime timber. Located some 97 kilometres west of the town of Kemaman, the concession is part of the Cherul Forest Reserve. Set in gently undulating topography, it is easily accessible and is served by a network of all-weather timber roads.

The concession is a Tropical Rain Forest of the Shorea/Dipterocarpus variety. Hitherto completely untouched, 70% of the concession is composed of two valuable hardwoods-Keruing and Meranti. The remaining population is a more varied mixture of heavy and mixedlight hardwoods.

Forest Management at PESAMA is both farsighted and innovative. Guided by the principles of sustained yield management, trees are removed at a rate roughly equal to the growth of those remaining, thus ensuring an infinite supply of logs.

More specifically, PESAMA employs the sophisticated Selective Management System. In this method, cutting in a particular sector is not merely determined by minimum cutting diameters but is finely calculated to take into consideration the variables of tree desity, growing rates and the relative age of the tree population. Hence in a sector which is densely populated by trees nearing maturity, trees with a smaller girth can be harvested with no real danger of serious depletion. This system makes for optimal output without the evils of deforestation.

PESAMA's 20,243 hectare concession is divided into five sectors of 4,048 hectares each. Cutting at rate of 809 hectares annually it allows for a cyclic harvesting rotation of 25 years. In a sense, sustained yield management is not, in the short run, dependent on reforestation since trees take up to 75 years to mature. It is therefore a measure of PESAMA's long range planning that reforestation is nevertheless an important part of its forest programme. The advantage of reforestation, which only becomes meaningful after the third cycle (75 years), is that allows the opportunity for determining the ideal tree mix in selecting species that have proved to be marketable, fast growing and economical to work with.

Forest management, as practised by PESAMA, is not merely a matter of ensuring a stable supply of timber. It is designed with an awareness that well-kept reserves are also an asset to water and soil conservation and the last sanctuary for wild life.