Ban helps increase wildlife population in Johor

Sunday November 7, 2010
By MOHD FARHAAN SHAH
thestar

JOHOR BARU: The royal ban on wildlife hunting in Johor has helped to steadily increase wildlife population in the state.

Johor National Parks Corporation director Abu Bakar Mohamed Salleh said the wildlife population, especially that of tigers, had seen an increase and he attributed this to the ban that was decreed by Sultan Ibrahim ibni Almarhum Sultan Iskandar in April last year.

“Previously, we recorded 11 tigers at our national park.

“Since the ban was imposed, we have sighted four more tigers, including three cubs.

“We are happy that the number of tigers in the state has increased,” he said, adding that the population of their prey had also increased.

“We have noticed that animals that used to be targets of hunters such as rusa (deer), kijang (barking deer) and kancil (mousedeer) had also increased,” he said.

Abu Bakar added that heightened surveillance of the national park had also helped the wildlife population to grow.

“We are working closely with our counterparts in (neighbouring) Pahang to ensure poachers do not hunt in our forests,” he said.

Abu Bakar, however, said poaching had not been eradicated.

“We still have hunters breaching our borders. Hopefully, with the help of the public and increased surveillance, we will be able to stop them,” he said.

Ruler bans hunting of wildlife

Friday March 5, 2010
By LOURDES CHARLES and NELSON BENJAMIN
thestar.com.my

JOHOR BARU: There will be no more hunting in the state, Johor Ruler Sultan Ibrahim Ibni Almar­hum Sultan Iskandar decreed.

He said the ban was necessary to protect the wildlife especially protected species from decreasing or going extinct. Sultan Ibrahim said that besides tigers, the ban includes bears, deer, mousedeer, tapir and porcupines.

“The poaching of these animals are so cruel. Eating one tiger claw will not make you have tiger strength for months,” he said referring to beliefs that consuming certain animal parts would help boost virility.

He stressed that if wild animals were causing a nuisance to people or farmers, they should inform the Johor Wildlife Department (Perhilitan).

“We can organise shooters for wild boars or crows,” he said, adding that a meeting would be held with Perhitilitan to enforce the ruling immediately.

“I want to protect the wildlife in Johor and those caught poaching should be jailed,” he told The Star in an exclusive interview at his Istana Pasir Pelangi here yesterday.

Sultan Ibrahim said he was breeding several animals like tigers, panthers and deers with the intention of releasing them into the jungle.

Sultan Ibrahim has 400 deer, 12 Siberian, Indian and Bengal tigers as well as panthers.

He also has six tiger cubs as a result of his breeding programme.

“I am trying to protect wildlife here including starting a rehabilitation centre for deer in central Johor,” he said, adding that he also hoped to work with the World Wildlife Foundation.

Sultan Ibrahim said he had informers who would report to him if people continued hunting.

He also wanted the procedures for the issuance of gun licences in the state to be tightened.

He warned those who misused their gun licences that he would not hesitate to get the authorities to revoke their licences and seize their guns.

“The police must assist and conduct roadblocks in places known to be famous for hunting to ensure no one flouts the law,” he added.

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Friday March 5, 2010
Private zoo implicated in smuggling of orangutan
By HILARY CHIEW and JOSHUA FOONG

PETALING JAYA: Besides keeping animals illegally, the controversial zoo in a southern state was also implicated in the smuggling of the critically endangered orangutan.

It was one of the private facilities in the country that is known to have acquired smuggled orangutan in recent years where the animals were confiscated and repatriated by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan).

This was confirmed by Perhilitan, thus contradicting the assertion of the zoo that the department took away a pair of its orangutan for breeding in Indonesia a year ago.

It is unclear if the zoo was penalised for the offence but it appeared that its special permit for orangutan was never revoked.

Instead, its orangutan collection was replaced; a six-year-old female was delivered in June last year followed by a 15-year-old male in December.

Perhilitan deputy director-general Misliah Mohamad Basir said the replacements were from the Bukit Merah Lake Town Resort as part of the department’s breeding loan programme, adding that it is an effort to promote eco-tourism in Johor.

In 2006, Malaysia repatriated seven Sumatran orangutan that were removed from a resort in Malacca and one from the Johor zoo following a nationwide DNA finger-printing exercise that revealed that 12 out of 58 orangutan held at seven facilities were Sumatran and the remaining 46 were Borneans.

However, in Perhilitan’s communication in 2005 with British-based NatureAlert that had taken an interest in the smuggled orangutan scandal, it was revealed that seven Borneans belonging to the Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii supspecies (found in Sarawak and western Kalimantan) would be repatriated.

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.