Dear Sir,
Regarding the article in April 22nd’s edition of the NST, I would like to express similar concerns about the recent poaching incidents in the Endau Park, Johor.
If we cannot protect our tigers, elephants and rhinoceros in designated reserves, then there is little reason to be optimistic that they will survive into the next century. The numbers of tigers and rhinos, particularly, without counting plants, birds and other animals, has fallen precipitously over the last twenty years.
I welcome the initiative of the Prime Minister to reorganize the federal ministries so that forests are no longer included in Primary Industries; this is a major shift in thinking about our natural assets. Without protecting our forests we will not only lose the animals within them but also the incredibly valuable natural services that forests generate: more and better fresh water, the absorption and retention of carbon dioxide and other green house gasses, and not least the retention of the natural landscape that has shaped the region’s culture for millennia.
What is Malay culture without the kampong and the forest? It provided the only livelihood before the developed era, shaping thinking and ways of life. Now that we have left the kampongs and forests with scarcely a backward glance, we are in danger of losing our sense of place and who we are in the face of globalization. It is this sense of place, engendered in the forests and our natural landscapes, that will shape a new culture for the future.
In so many other ways Malaysians are divided from each other, be it by language, religion or food, but our feelings of ‘Malaysianness’ inevitably come down to the special characteristics of the place that we love and belong to. Looking at the remarkable diversity of Malaysia’s cultural heritage, it is the landscape alone that we truly share with each other. The beaches, the rivers, forests and mountains, give us all a profound sense of place and pride. Malay place names have always followed the predominant physical or botanical features that made the place special, be it Sungai Buloh or Kuala Lumpur. This importance of place is part of our culture, and we stand to lose it if we fail to protect those features of our natural heritage that have sustained us in the past.
I appeal to the government, in particular to the Prime Minister, to protect our landscape, protect our forests and all that is within them, give some real teeth to the enforcement of forest and marine protection. Otherwise, our descendants will be left with a blighted landscape and a blighted culture.
Angela Hijjas