Sunday, March 14, 2010

Environment Disaster Coming to Perlis?

The karst landscape of Perlis is well known. The underground river system is extensive. So extensive that it was once proclaimed as the longest underground river system in Peninsular Malaysia. The narrow strip of Bintang Range bordering Thailand is barely a few kilometers wide. Burrowing a tunnel anywhere will disect the ground river system and will affect underground water that feed the Timah-Tasoh dam and affecting the environment. Economically it will benefit citizens of Malaysia and Thailand through mutual trade and tourism, but is it worth it if our natural heritage, our rare fauna and flora found only in this part of northern Peninsular decimated? Are we going to keep quite (again!) and let the Government creates the havoc to our environment while our future generation suffer the consequences?

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Sunday March 14, 2010 MYT 4:22:00 PM
Thailand agrees to tunnel linking Satun to Perlis

KANGAR: Thailand is agreeable to a proposal to build a tunnel linking its Satun province to Perlis, Satun Governor Sumeth C. Vatnikul said here Sunday.

The proposed project was awaiting the green light from the Malaysian government, he told reporters after an unofficial meeting with the Northern Corridor Economic Region (NCER) Entrepreneurs Club, here.

Sumeth and Perlis Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Md Isa Sabu discussed the proposal six months ago and agreed to raise it with their respective cabinets.

The tunnel, estimated to be four kilometres long, would go through the Bintang mountain range in Malaysia (1.5 km) and the Sangkakiri mountain range in Thailand (2.5 km).

NCER Entrepreneurs Club chairman Dr Ammar Hassan said the project would transform the physical and economic landscapes of the surrounding areas, and the entrepreneurs and traders in Perlis would stand to benefit. - Bernama

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