PARLIAMENT | Putrajaya will no longer consider any environmental impact assessment (EIA) approvals for protected wetlands in Malaysia in the future.
This after the previous BN government approved the building of a golf course at the Sungai Pulai forest reserve in Johor.
"We have made the decision that EIA approvals will no longer be considered in the future for all Ramsar (wetlands) sites in Malaysia, including Sungai Pulai," Energy, Technology, Science, Climate Change and Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin told the Dewan Rakyat today.
She was responding to a question from Wong Shu Qi (Harapan-Kluang), who had asked about the Forest City golf course being built at the Sungai Pulai mangrove swamps.
"A ballpark figure is that less than 10 percent of Sungai Pulai has received EIA approval from the previous government," Yeo replied.
She added the ministry was reviewing the EIA process to improve upon it.
Wetlands, she said, were acknowledged to have international importance as shown by the Ramsar Convention.
Sungai Pulai is one of the sites classified as Wetlands of International Importance under the 2003 Ramsar Convention.
It is a mammoth 8,334ha mangrove swamp almost twice the land mass of Putrajaya.
Yeo said Malaysia has seven wetland sites, with three of them being in Johor. The others are in Sabah and Sarawak, as well as in Pahang.
Malaysiakini previously reported a part of the forest reserve was being transformed into the 800ha Forest City Golf Course Resort. - Mkini
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