Sunday, May 31, 2009

They are logging three times more land than is needed.

They are doing it again. Big money for their own pockets. Disregarding nature but for personal gains. Trengganu is oil-rich and they don't need the logging money. Trengganu has Kenyir Dam and the largest in Peninsular Malaysia with enough electricity to export to other states. Why built more dams? The answer - because of timber, stupid!
Shame to Malaysians. It takes a foreign group to call for petition. Lets help do our part.
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Dear Prime Minister Dato' Sri Najib,

I am alarmed by the proceedings of the hydroelectric project in Terengganu, which involve logging three times more forest than is needed. This project will dam the Sungai Terengganu Mati and Sungai Tembat rivers, creating two reservoirs, which will flood 6130ha of forest reserves. However, the state government plans to log an additional 12,620ha surrounding this area.

This logging is completely unnecessary and as the valuable forest disappears, so will many species that inhabit the area, such as the endangered Sumatran rhinoceros and the Malayan tiger. There are also 94 species of plants and animals in the forest that the International Union for Conservation of Nature has deemed Red Listed as threatened by extinction.

Although a Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) on the project predicts that logging will have a high impact on the wildlife, logging has begun illegally, prior to the approval of the DEIA. I urge you to protect the wildlife and stop the unnecessary and unlawful logging of this high-value forest in the Terengganu region.

[Your comments here]

Thank you for helping to save these forests.


Sincerely,
[Your name here]

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Human-wildlife Conflict

May 27, 2009
Elephant found dead after encroaching into plantation
Star
By HILARY CHIEW

KUALA LUMPUR: A female elephant, which was part of a small herd reported to be causing damage in several oil palm plantations, was found dead in Gerik last week. She was believed to have been poisoned.

The animal, almost an adult judging from the measurement of its front soles, succumbed to blood poisoning caused by ingestion of pesticide-laced food, said sources.

The carcass was discovered by wildlife rangers on May 18, at Kampung Strang, located next to a forest reserve that connects to the Belum-Temenggor forest complex.

A source alleged that the oil palm estate was an illegal operation by smallholders that encroached into state land.

He said there had been complaints of animal disturbance in the area by three elephants.

He added that the damage was not severe but “yet, they resorted to poisoning the innocent elephants.”

Department of Wildlife and National Park (Perhilitan) deputy director-general Misliah Mohamed Bashir confirmed that a report had been received.

“We will act against the culprit but we must get the proof. Our people in Gerik are still investigating the matter,” she said.

Elephants are protected species under the Wildlife Protection Act. Killing one without a licence is an offence that carries a fine not exceeding RM3,000 or imprisonment not exceeding three years or both, upon conviction.

To manage the human-wildlife conflict, more than 100 elephants had been relocated in the last 15 years.

Saturday, May 23, 2009

Penang: Say no to plastic bags

May 23, 2009
Penang: Say no to plastic bags
The Star

GEORGE TOWN: The Penang Government plans to make every first Monday of the month a “no to plastic bags” day starting from July.

The state was determined to see through the green move despite getting lukewarm response from retail operators in an earlier attempt, when only a handful of them turned up for a meeting on the matter.

Undeterred, state Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environment committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said a meeting would again be held on June 2 – this time with 300 operators of mini markets, supermarkets, hypermarkets and departmental stores.

“We’ll make a final decision on June 2 on how we can reduce the use of plastic bags.

“If all goes well, starting on the first Monday of July, no plastic bags will be issued at the counters of these places,” he said here.

An earlier meeting was chaired on May 18 but only 32 operators attended.

“We will work extra hard to generate awareness among Penangites to minimise the use of plastic bags. We will also suggest that all supermarkets and hypermarkets set up express lanes for customers who bring their own bags, give out special promotions and also give out free environment-friendly bags to shoppers who spend RM50 and above,” Phee said.

Phee added that some consumers might be upset about not getting plastic bags but he hoped that they would respect the effort to preserve the environment.

He said several countries had imposed a ban or taxation on the use of plastic bags but Penang was not looking at such legislation yet.

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Raja Musa Forest Reserve - Give The Smallholder HELL please!

These smallholders are cronies from the previous Barisan Najis. The Barisan Najis through agents sold land to smallholders without titles. And these greedy smallholders (which they claim but actually rich buggers) actually exploited the forest reserve, without thinking about the ecological damages done - affecting farmers down stream, draining off the peat swamp, killing enormous number of wildlife and forest, flora....and they dare to cry double standard? HELL to them. They employed foreigners to work on the peat swamps. Look at some of the pictures below to prove to you the damages and raping of healthy forest for personal profit by the so called cronies of Barisan Najis......
Raja Musa Forest Reserve - barren for miles the shit left by the previous government.
Miles and miles of open, barren land of Raja Musa Forest Reserve, Selangor. Culprits should be hanged or given rotan. But sadly you can buy your way out.
Foreign workers near the boundary of Raja Musa Forest Reserve. They were willing to sell us wildlife caught from the reserve at the right price.
------check news below------

May 20, 2009
Raja Musa forest reserve smallholders cry double standard
Star

SMALLHOLDERS who were evicted from the Raja Musa forest reserve near Batang Berjuntai are crying foul over the double standard practised by the Selangor government.

They claimed the government did not take immediate action to evict encroachers at the Kuala Langat forest reserve.

The group who were evicted from the Raja Musa peat swamp forest reserve during an enforcement exercise some time at the end of last year, felt that the state government had given face to those who committed the same offence in the Kuala Langat area.

“The state is willing to listen to them and had even called for a meeting with them,” said Idris Jaafar, one of the smallholders who were evicted from the forest reserve last year.

“They were also given more time to work on the land until they can collect their harvest this season.

“The state did not give the same chance to us,” he said.

He said they had tried to hold a similar meeting to voice their grouses to the state government since last year, but it fell on deaf ears.

“Most of us had invested a lot of money on the land and had been working there for years.

“We also had the approval to conduct the agricultural activity although it was on the forest reserve.

“So why didn’t they give us a chance like what they are doing to the group from Kuala Langat,” he added.

His sentiment was shared by Nordin Kassim, another smallholder who had lost his crop during the exercise.

“Last time when the authority told us that we could not plant oil palm trees and told us to replace it with cash crop instead, we obeyed and replaced them with pineapple and banana trees.

“How come no one told us that we were not allow to do all of this from the beginning,” he said.

When asked, Selangor state agriculture committee chairman Yaakob Sapari said such action was necessary as the threat was far worse in Raja Musa forest reserve.

Yaakob, who is also the state natural resources and entrepreneur development committee chairman, said the Raja Musa forest reserve was a very sensitive one as it affected the water table.

The Raja Musa forest reserve affects not only the encroachers but also the padi farmers and the water table as it is a peat forest.

“More than 9,500 rice growers are affected due to the draining of the Raja Musa peat forest.

“But over here, it only affects the forest ecology,” he said.

For over 10 years, more than 600ha of the forest reserve was illegally cleared and burnt for large-scale farming.

At the end of last year, the Selangor state forestry department, on the instruction of the state government, ordered the eviction of the illegal occupants and started the clearing of all vegetation and agricultural activities in the area.

Since then the department together with various NGOs have put up continuous efforts to rehabilitate the 23,000ha peat swamp forest reserve.

It includes replanting seedlings of indigenous to the peat swamp species to turn it back into its natural state.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Politicians in bed with bad company at Sg Pulai

May 15, 09
GreenPea
Source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/104389

Johor was a state endowed with vast tracts of coastal mangrove. Note the past tense used.

Ironically, it is also the only state in the country with the highest number of Ramsar sites. The recognition for the protection of wetlands such as mangrove swamps of international importance was awarded to Pulau Kukup, Tanjung Piai and Sungai Pulai in January 2003; all located in the southwest of the state.

The three sites are part and parcel of the bigger Pulai river basin which incidentally is one of the highest fishery production centres in the country due to its unique geographical location.

In terms of bio-diversity, the wetlands are home to the endangered dugongs, turtles and seahorses as well as being the flyway of migratory birds. Unfortunately, the eagerness of the state in listing its Ramsar sites is not matched by its protection measures.

In the last one decade, the region's pristine mangrove forests have seen tremendous destruction - from the construction of the port of Tanjung Pelepas to the setting up of the 2,100MW Tanjung Bin coal-fired power plant to, now, the reclamation of a further another 913ha of the forest for a petro-chemical hub.

The development, which has largely escaped scrutiny of the Malaysian public, has ignored various national laws and guidelines.

Firstly, the approval of the Preliminary Environmental Impact Assessment (which means no public review) reports for the power plant and the petro-chemical hub are highly questionable as public participation was sorely inadequate.

A coal-fired power plant and a petro-chemical hub carry with them inherent environmental and health effects that have yet to be clearly communicated to the local communities.

Secondly, a provision under the Environmental Quality Act (Prescribed Activities) Regulations requires development projects encroaching into more than 500ha of coastal wetlands to be subjected to a Detailed EIA (not just a Preliminary EIA) which compels the report to be reviewed by the public.

Thirdly, the Sg Pulai wetlands are clearly identified as an Environmentally Sensitive Area Rank 1 by the National Physical Plan - a plan that was approved by the cabinet and tacitly endorsed by the various state governments.

Forget about scrutiny by public regulatory bodies like the Department of Environment which is powerless when our legislators ie, the politicians, are in bed with corporate devils.

All three projects are operated and owned by various subsidiaries of a giant public-listed company, which, hypocritically, professes to uphold Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility.

To salvage its tarnished image, the company now attempts to green-wash its activities. To ensure that the strategy is effective, it needs the endorsement of the greenies.

In November, 2007, it enlisted the ‘help' of none other than the Malaysian Nature Society by funding a coffee-table book project to document...ahem...the rich biological heritage of Sg Pulai.

Recently, it also managed to quell dissenting voices from the fishing communities by compensating some full-time fishermen to the tune of RM10,000 each and further promising a monthly RM800 compensation scheme for the next 20 years. So, looks like the fisher folks are throwing in the towel.

In 2007, using a tried and tested formula to pacify initial uproar through the mainstream media, the Johor menteri besar ‘ordered' the project developers to submit a DEIA report.

But the menteri besar has since turned his back on the environment, ignoring the threat posed to food security and potential health problems arising from these development activities in the much-hyped Iskandar Development Region.

Tomorrow, in typical oxymoron fashion - ‘destroy first, restore later'- the menteri besar of Johor, Ghani Othman, will sink his feet into the Sg Pulai mud to plant some mangrove saplings to show the state's ‘commitment' to the environment and further green the image of the environmental crime perpetrator.

Your readers may never have heard of Sg Pulai and will probably never get a chance to experience its beauty but they ought to know of this carnage and hopefully will stand up against further destruction of our precious, life-giving wetlands.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

Do you Think Malaysia is Great?

The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated. - Mahatma Gandhi 1869-1948


Follow this report:

About 300 stray dogs were rounded up by Pulau Ketam residents and deported to an isolated island to fend for themselves.

Over half of them are already dead and the remaining ones may not live long. A rescue mission is being mounted and your help is needed.

The residents of Pulau Ketam sent some 300 stray dogs to exile on a remote island where the harsh conditions almost certainly guarantee a horrible death. Of the 300 dogs sent there, more than three-quarters are presumed to be already dead. I traveled to the island with Sabrina Yeap of Furry Friends Farm and managed to save only one dog on this reconnaissance trip. We did see several other starving and dying dogs along the mangrove shore.

I am mounting an urgent rescue mission to capture and transport the remaining survivors back to Sabrina's Furry Friends Farm animal shelter. But time is running out and there might be only skeletons and carcasses left to collect on our next trip. Boat hire is expensive there. It is a tourist area and it has already cost me a few hundred ringgit for boat hire alone, so far. The rescued dogs cannot be transported on the regular ferries.

Almost nobody will lift a finger to help without a fee. This is understandable. The locals are already shaking their heads in disbelief that there are outsiders who want to save the animals they so casually discarded. Instead of pointing fingers and antagonising them, we need their co-operation to help save the unfortunate creatures. In the process, we also hope to educate the islanders on better treatment of animals. It would be an impossible mission if we didn't win their hearts.

If you are unable to help directly, please help by forwarding this appeal to other compassionate folks who you feel might be able to make some monetary contributions.

Apart from boat hire, we need money to buy cages, to pay people to help catch them, to hire land transport to send the rescued animals to veterinary clinics, pay for vet fees, send the recovered ones to the shelter and to feed and house them for life. I can go on!

To donate or help, e-mail TV Smith at tvsmith@mycen.com.my or Sabrina Yeap at yeapwen@yahoo.com

Fellow bloggers, you can also help by embedding the appeal poster above to your blog and linking to
http://www.mycen.com.my/rescue

We are aware it is a monumental task and appreciate all forms of support, assistance, suggestions, encouragement and your prayers.