Malaysia needs help – big time

FMT LETTER

From JC Tansen, via e-mail

While Malaysia has enjoyed impressive rates of economic growth over the last 40 years, there has been substantial, irreparable and avoidable loss of her natural capital. Recognised as one of 12 countries blessed with mega biodiversity, Malaysia has difficulty protecting its remaining wildlife. If forest cover is about 60 %, it is thanks to FAO’s (Food and Agriculture Organisation) generous definition of a “forest”– land with at least 10% of tree crown cover, which can include forestry-type plantations such as rubber wood.

Our forests – degraded by logging and replaced by plantations, fragmented by roads, and raided frequently by poachers hired by syndicates – harbour alarmingly declining numbers of wildlife. In the IUCN’s (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List, Malaysia has the world’s third highest number of plants and animals threatened with extinction. The list warns of the disappearance of the tiger, sambar deer, rhinoceros, elephant, tapir, sunbear, Orang Utan, pangolin, hawksbill and leatherback turtles, among others, if business-as-usual continues – and it does. In a trade powered by demand from China, Vietnam and Thailand, Malaysia has emerged as a major hub in the smuggling of wildlife and wildlife products. To stop the demand and the trade, Malaysia needs help.

Lowland forests of high value have been all but lost to plantations and urban development. More forests and habitats are being lost to oil palm, latex timber clones and mega projects to supply energy or water, a development mostly driven by top-down decision-makers working in concert and without transparency with private sector players. In this regard, Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud’s headlong conversion of peat swamp forests into oil palm plantations, his “necklace” of 12 hydro-electric mega projects and concessions for high-impact logging (to clear the way for plantations) – all of which simultaneously dispossess native people of their customary lands – show careless abandon. The judiciary and mainstream media do not enjoy sufficient autonomy to fulfil their check-and-balance roles. To stop Taib, Malaysia needs help.

Meanwhile, Malaysian logging and oil palm companies take their plunder-for-profit expertise to countries around the world. To reform these companies, Malaysia needs help.

Domestic sewage, waste from livestock and farms, discharges from agro-based and other industries, silt from earthworks and logging roads, and leachate from dumps pollute rivers and inland waters. Marine waters are similarly affected. Clearing mangroves, overfishing, diving and snorkelling hasten the loss of coral reefs. Trawlers equipped with nets hundreds of metres long fish illegally in coastal waters. Our fish stock has declined by 90% since the 70s. To save our corals and fish, Malaysia needs help.

The quality of our urban environment is a little better. Foreign workers collect and dispose of the garbage, sweep drains and retrieve leaves and litter from public areas to help us. There are intermittent periods of haze caused by distant forest clearing but air quality is generally acceptable, thanks in good measure to abundant rain from the heavens. Urban green lungs, essential for air quality as well as for aesthetics and spiritual well-being, survive in ever-diminishing pockets in the face of the ever-present pressures from pesky developers and a surging population. Spatial planning has given way to urban sprawl and a confusing tangle of tolled highways. If public transport infrastructure is second rate, it serves as a life support to the local car industry by putting record numbers of cars on the road.

Land, water, fauna and flora suffer badly from slack enforcement of existing regulations. Still, many problems begin “upstream”. Making decisions that favour runaway economic development reflects little or no appreciation of the ecosystems and the value of sustaining their services. Poor coordination and non-interaction among too many government agencies vested with bits of authority result in economic planning decisions that compromise the environment. Much of this is facilitated by the public and leaders in all walks of life who choose to remain largely unaware of a vanishing paradise. To inform and engage them, Malaysia needs help.

Yes, Malaysia needs help – big time.