A forest reserve in Perak, which is part of a key wildlife corridor in Peninsular Malaysia, is now being threatened by plans to develop monoculture farming there.
Last week, Perak Menteri Besar Ahmad Faizal Azumu said three companies had received permits to develop 400 hectares in the Piah Forest Reserve, pending environmental impact assessments.
Environmental group Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) said monoculture farming will be yet another blow to the forest reserve in Lenggong which has already been ravaged by mining and logging activities.
The permits have been issued despite the reserve being part of the Central Forest Spine – a network of four main forest complexes which supplies 80 percent of the water supply in Malaysia and is a habitat to various endangered wildlife such as the Malayan tiger.
As most people know greed is short-sighted, narrow-minded, the source of much poverty and sooner or later destroys itself.
In the case of this mindless assault on Malaysia’s fragile remaining wildernesses it is clear that SOMEBODY has decided that filling a few pockets, of which theirs will most definitely be one, is more important than preserving the health of the country’s landscape for everyone else and for future generations.
There is no other good reason for destroying the last vestiges of the country’s seed-bank of its rich and varied wildlife – its flora and fauna, and its crucial reservoirs. Likewise, for destroying the livelihoods of those who have lived harmoniously within the same environment for years, the Orang Asli whom the Perak MB seeks to blame for their own suffering from the destructive logging in the state.
The potential of these remaining natural areas to provide the keys to future prosperity and scientific discovery are of paramount importance to the nation.
However, SOMEBODY wants another condo with gold taps, a new sports mobile, a fancy Swiss watch and probably has foreign school fees to pay and their eye on a Knightsbridge mansion flat as well. They also want to eat till they succumb to Type 2 diabetes and to sign off having to do any further work at all.
That SOMEBODY will have been involved in the key decision-making with regard to these otherwise senseless and destructive licences, which will finally destroy a natural park of immense importance, hastily handed out under the cover of Covid to crony licensees without proper public scrutiny or tender.
They are likely to be seeking to take advantage of the Coup Coalition’s continuing grasp on power to push such land grabs through.
The people of Perak need merely identify who was responsible for these decisions (and who have ‘joint venture’ arrangements with the licensees) to work out whose greed is ultimately responsible for this corrupt raid on the wellbeing of the wider nation.
Malaysia should be able to do better than this.