Sungai Kelantan: A Story of an Agony  

Wan Izzuddin Sulaiman

The writer at the banks of the river Kwai, Thailand

Let us not forget that a river is an integral part of human life and his civilization. Many important milestones of human history occurred on the banks of rivers. The Euphrates, Tigris, Nile, Yangtze, Mekong, Thames, Rhine, Seine, Amazon and many other rivers have given rise to great cities and countries.

Even though Sungai Kelantan is not as great as these rivers, it is nevertheless the birthplace of a distinct sub-group of the ethnic Malay called Oghe Kelate (in local dialect), probably from around the 15^th or 16^th century.

Being a Kelantanese, I have fond memories of Sungai Kelantan and harbour deep emotional ties with it. The state of Kelantan has aptly derived its name from this river. Our identity as a people is intimately bonded to the river which is central to our geography, culture and history.

Sungai Kelantan is a unique river in South-east Asia since it is the only river known to flow northwards. All other rivers in this region flow southwards. The length of the river from the headwaters to the estuary is about 450 km and is fed by more than 180 streams with a catchment area of about 11,900 square kilometers. Sungai Kelantan’s main tributaries are Sungai Betis, Sungai Galas, Sungai Nenggiri and Sungai Lebir, passing through major towns and villages which were settled by my ancestors hundreds of years ago.

For many centuries Oghe Kelate have been deriving their sustenance and livelihood from Sungai Kelantan. It’s tributaries originates from what used to be lush and undisturbed tropical forests, an ecological paradise teeming with life and biodiversity. It’s flood plains used to support a fertile rice bowl and its sprawling delta were the natural habitats of fishes, prawns and mud crabs, palm groves, fruit trees – abundant resources  that supported a self-sufficient agrarian economy of the Kelantan river basin for hundreds of years.

Growing up in rural Kelantan in the 60’s was a real blessing to me. At the age of five our family moved to a remote village only accessible by boat, upstream from Kuala Krai. To me the image and the memory of the river was one of might and magnanimity, of life and sustenance, of water so clear, cool and fresh. We bathed, swam and played in the river. As children we were taught to collect tiny clams called etok from the river beds, a delicacy snack once sun-dried and slightly salted. We followed the adults at night to scoop the giant freshwater prawns udang galah from their nesting sites along the river banks. The Sungai Kelantan was once the centre of our life, our paradise, a place where life springs forth and thence blossoms. But, these were only memories of my river paradise. It is now forever lost.

Today, I dare not bring my children to the Sungai Kelantan for them to experience a glimpse of my youth. For the pristine and clean Sungai Kelantan is gone, its water turbid yellow with suspended soil particles, its banks soft and muddy, the river beds thick with mud and silt, and its etak and udang galah and ikan patin are no longer abundant. Seen from an aeroplane, the Kelantan River is a yellow band of line cutting across the green landscape. We used to refer this colour to the colour of our favourite drink “teh tarik”, but with the pungency of mud and silt. What is left of Sungai Kelantan is just a sight of shame and a burden of guilt.

The Big Yellow Muddy Flood of 2014

Decades of intensive clearing of jungles and forests in its watershed area upstream for the extraction of timber and for the cultivation of oil palm and rubber trees have caused an environmental catastrophe beyond anybody’s expectation. In a landmark study by Ambak and Zakaria in 2009, the investigators reported that nine major species of fish in the river was considered as critically endangered. Earlier studies in the early and mid 90s showed that the Kelantan river system was still rich in freshwater fishes, supporting a total of 55 species. 

Within one generation, the Sungai Kelantan’s ecosystem is practically dead, devoid of its lustre and vigour. The role of Sungai Kelantan in sustaining a living ecosystem, irrigating paddy fields, supplying drinking water, and freshwater fishes and prawns are no longer sustainable; its delta and estuaries turned shallow due to heavy siltation, the water pumps supplying municipal water frequently clog due to silts, and during dry spells the irrigation canals run dry due to blockages of mud and silt near the pump houses – a dear price paid in the name of development and progress.

 Gua Musang town submerged under water

Stadium Sultan Mohd IV surrounded by the yel;low flood

The “Great Yellow Flood” of December, 2014 came as no surprise. The ecological burden or “man-made” hazards harboured by the river ecosystem of Sungai Kelantan has been mounting for many decades. These man-made hazards conspired with the “natural hazards” of meteorological origins to cause the most unprecedented natural disaster in the modern history of our country. Hundreds of thousands of Kelantanese have to evacuate their homes, including my own family. Many have lost their houses, belongings, and source of livelihood.

As the carnage, rubbish and dust start to clear up, some state politicians are unfortunately still in deep denial mode. It is true that they have to sell their coveted tracts of jungles to plantation and mining companies to generate revenue to pay salaries and maintain the state’s coffers. But they should have not let these companies cut and ravaged the hills as they wish.  

A cursory visit to any of these development sites in Gua Musang and Kuala Krai districts will easily reveal the absence of any good environmental practice, particularly with regards to the management of top soil erosion and surface water run-off. Trees replanting program in these sites is hardly heard of.

The development of the flood plain in Kampong Sireh and the paddy fields of Tunjong, both involving massive embankment, reclamation and land-filling, have permanently changed the flow of flood water in the Kota Bharu district. Many home owners caught off-guarded because never in their living memory has the flood reached their safe havens.

The collaboration between the state and federal governments to jointly manage the reconstruction of flood stricken areas in Kelantan announced yesterday was a step in the right direction, hopefully not too late.

The federal government must bring in teams of multi-disciplinary experts to develop a long term plan to address the root causes of this ecological nightmare. Both the state and federal governments must realize that Islamic activism is void and meaningless without the much needed environmental activism. For what is the meaning of servitude to God if we neglected our divinely ordained duty to be his caliphate, to be the guardian of the earth, including its flora and fauna.  

The story of the Sungai Kelantan is that of melancholy and agony. It reminds me of the popular song Hijau by Zainal, the lyrics are partly in the Kelantanese dialect, reproduced below for the readers to sing along. Hijau is the colour green so passionately loved by many Kelantanese.

Dewasa ini kita saling merayakan
Kejayaan yang akhirnya membinasakan
Apalah gunanya kematangan fikiran
Bila di jiwa kita masih lagi muda dan mentah
Ku lihat hijau

Bumiku yang kian pudar
Siapa yang melihat
Di kala kita tersedar
Mungkinkah terlewat

Korupsi, oppressi, obsessi diri
Polussi, depressi di bumi kini

Oo... anok-anok
Tok leh meghaso mandi laok
Bersaing, main ghama-ghama

Ale lo ni tuo omornyo berjoto
Kito usoho jauh ke daghi malo petako

Ozon lo ni koho nipih nak nak aghi
Keno make asak hok biso, weh
Pase maknusio
Seghemo bendo-bendo di dunio
Tok leh tahe
Sapa bilo-bilo

The Singer (Zainal) and the Poet (Pak Samad) Photo credit: Kosmo Online

There is always an overwhelming desire to conquer nature and compelling economic reasons to exploit its resources, but in the process the value of the conqueror himself, who is man, is destroyed and his very existence threatened.

Sustainable Development of Cameron Highlands: Striking the Balance between Tourism and Agriculture.

Wan Izzuddin Sulaiman

This article appeared in The Malaysian Insider 21 November, 2014

Tea plantation in Cameron Highlands

In 1885 a British surveyor by the name of William Cameron stumbled upon a high plateau during an expedition near the border of three states, Pahang, Perak and Kelantan. It was not until the 1930’s when the British administration started to develop the area now known as the Cameron Highlands into a hill resort to allow the colonists to escape from the sweltering heat of the lowlands. Later on they found the area to be suitable for growing tea, a favourite beverage crop for them.

Tourists visiting a tea plantation in Cameron Highlands

Cameron Highlands slowly grew into a beautiful and serene hill station, becoming a quick weekend getaway within a driving distance from the nation’s capital.   The cool ambience, the flower gardens, the mossy forests, the tea plantations on gentle rolling hills and the Tudor styled bungalows dotting the hillsides remained as the attractions that have pulled many holiday makers to this hill station. The winding road that connects Tapah –Ringlet - Tanah Rata was the only passage available – and that has remained more or less the same until as recent as the early 90’s. 

   Mosses growing on tree trunks at Mossy Forest, Gunung Brinchang

That was when the Simpang Pulai – Blue Valley road was completed. The road connects seamlessly into the North – South Highway, providing much better access to the burgeoning market in the Klang Valley and as far south as Singapore.  Suddenly there was a development boom.  The growing middle class in the country have created two major demands from Cameron Highlands:  a favourite holiday destination and the demands for temperate weather fruits and vegetables.  Along the way, we have succumbed to both demands and things went out of control, putting Cameron Highlands into severe environmental pressures.

Intensive vegetable farming in Cameron Highlands

In the years to come we will see the friction between these two sectors of the economy (food production versus tourism) continue to escalate; competing for the limited space and resources in the Cameron Highlands. There is nothing wrong with both. Actually both economic sectors can co-exist, provided that there is an immaculate balance between the two.

I believe many of us may have heard the term “ecotourism”. The World Conservation Union describes ecotourism as “environmentally responsible travel and visitation to natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature and for any accompanying cultural features that promote conservation, have a low visitor impact and provide for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local people”.  In Malaysia, the government has rolled out a master plan to develop ecotourism in the country way back in 1996.

Ecotourism cannot flourish alongside unbridled growth of intensive agriculture production. The pressure to produce more food in a limited space would inevitably require sacrifices to be made on nature and aesthetics. Trees have to be cut down. Slopes have to be flattened. Pesticides and fertilizers have to be profusely poured. Water has to be delivered to the farms at all costs. Farm wastes and run-offs will overflow. There is no ecotourism if rivers are yellowish with mud and silt, and the riverbanks littered with trashes, plastics and cans.  

Relai River in Lojing Highlands, heavy flow of mud and silt.

What we need is for agriculture in our highlands to be more sustainable. Sustainability can be expressed as meeting the present environmental (ecological), societal and economic needs without compromising the needs of the future generations.

Educating and changing the attitude of farmers is not easy. But the government must decisively lead the way. Perhaps the government can start by developing showcases of “agrotourism”, an activity closely related to ecotourism, without inflicting any major collateral damage on the environment and nature. The farmers have to be shown the way that beautifully landscaped and well managed farms will attract visitors and bring more income. More environmentally friendly crops suitable to the highlands have to be introduced to replace intensive farming. Agroforestry concept where agriculture blends with forestry can be introduced. Development of responsible water and waste management has to be given a top priority. Funds have to be made available to support the development of “natural capital” (goods and services that nature provides to support our sustenance, our living and our economy) for the sake of conserving our highlands.

We may want to emulate Thailand in developing the Doi Tung region in the north or Kanchanaburi in the west into among Asia’s top ecotourism/agro-tourism destination. Take a look at even Da Lat in Vietnam where tourism synergistically coexists with agriculture in the highlands.  

Doi Tung Gardens in the Chiang Rai highlands, Thailand

The government cannot be seen as the culprits, complicit to the destruction of the ecosystem of our highlands. Several government projects involving three state governments, currently under way in and around Cameron Highlands, are probably setting bad examples to the public. A major project to relocate settlers in mile 48, Kuala Terla on the Pahang side is cutting slopes and flattening hill tops. Another one on the Perak side, along the Simpang Pulai – Blue Valley road is clearing a huge swath of forests and hill slopes to make way for a an agriculture project to plant corns, tomatoes and strawberries. While on the Kelantan side, the destruction of Lojing Highlands (mostly in government owned lands) is already too notorious to mention. 

   

The tropical highlands found in Malaysia are indeed one of the planet’s richest “nature” treasure troves. It is the source of natural capital that can contribute to the well being of the country in many ways some of which have not been imagined and fully realized before. It is home to many exotic plants such as the giant Rafflesia flowers, rare orchids, ferns and pitcher plants. It is also a megastore for genetic biodiversity.  

Unless the highlands ecosystem, its wildlife, exquisite nature, tranquil beauty, crisp clean air and crystal clear water can be shown to have real and substantial value, decisions are often made in favour of fast economic gains. It is therefore the government’s responsibility to strike a balance between the need to satisfy short term economic interests and the long term goals of sustainability. 

The culprit behind the Cameron Highlands mudslide – Sin Chew Daily

Source: The Malaysian Insider Published: 25 November 2014

Flash floods and landslides in Cameron Highlands early this month had claimed five lives. The government said illegal land and illegal foreign workers were the culprits of the disaster. The police and the Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) were therefore ordered to deploy more personnel to Cameron Highlands and crack down on illegal nighttime exploitation activities.

And now, a large number of police has set up roadblocks to strictly inspect vehicles going up and down Cameron Highlands, while some also entered remote areas and forests to search illegal foreign workers. So far, 39 illegal foreign workers have been detained. The armed forces and Immigration officers also launched unprecedented search at vegetable farms, causing some legal foreign workers to be taken away and released only after their employers negotiated with the authorities the next day. The quiet atmosphere has suddenly turned tense, with illegal foreign workers fleeing, and even legal foreign workers are trying to avoid from being caught.

The need to clamp down on illegal foreign workers is understandable, but the law enforcement operations should avoid disturbing and affecting local residents. Farmers in Cameron Highlands have always been facing labour shortage problem. We do not encourage the employment of illegal foreign workers, but blindly launching a large-scale clampdown operation on foreign workers is undoubtedly a major blow to farmers who rely heavily on foreign workers, and it is even worse for those affected by floods. 

Cameron Highlands has been a famous highland resort known for its cool climate, scenery and pleasant natural environment. The outbreak of floods was extremely rare in the past but in recent years, floods struck during heavy rains, causing casualties and serious property damages. The originally dark green mountains have now become barren, showing that Cameron Highlands has been over-exploited and deforested.

The government blames illegal exploitation activities for causing the flash floods and it is indeed the case. However, the culprit is not the employed and instructed illegal foreign workers, but the backstage manipulators who used relationships to illegally appropriate the land and launched massive exploitation activities. Various drawbacks like business-government collusion, power intervention and abuse of power have been involved in the process of turning illegal exploitation into legal development. And these are the bane of the disaster in Cameron Highlands.

If the government had frozen the issuance of temporary lease since 2001, but exploitation projects have still been going on in the recent two years, it shows that officers responsible for approving temporary lease have enjoyed too much power and involved in dereliction of duty. There are also doubts over honesty and integrity. Since the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) received reports regarding illegal land appropriation in Cameron Highlands, it should then start investigating, instead of passively waiting for someone to provide sufficient information.

All in all, to tackle illegal exploitation, it should get back to the abuse of power and business-government collusion problems. Focusing on illegal foreign workers while letting the backstage manipulators go free would not be able to once and for all solve the problem. – mysinchew.com, November 25, 2014.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.

We need fresh lessons like Cameron Highlands tragedy to remind us to respect nature – K. T. Maran

Source: The Malaysian Insider, 16 November 2014

The Cameron Highlands incident had opened up the Pandora box that we are plundering the earth for our greed which can never ever be satisfied.

It is the Malaysian culture to let whatever happen before accident strikes and then the public and the government take notice and try to figure out the reasons for the incident and find solutions.

This is Malaysian institutional way of identifying, discovering and implementing solutions. This culture of the institution and the public must change, if not nature will teach it lessons in a very non-reversible process which will result in the death of the innocents and sufferings to the general public just to appease the few greedy invisible hand.

The  Malaysian government must realise we have to implement and monitor policies which are sustainable.

One of the main roots of our unsustainable society is the idea that human beings are somehow separate or independent from Nature and the rest of life. Its not so difficult to see how we have modelled our lifestyle after western culture based on this foundation.

The signs are everywhere: in the way we live, enclosing our homes from the outside world as we try to keep the dirt out; in the way we speak and relate to one another, with an emphasis on “me”, “I”, “you”, “mine”; in the way we traditionally conduct science, believing in an independent experimenter.

This view has enabled us to treat Nature as an inanimate object to do with whatever we please. We can blow up mountaintops, pollute entire oceans, destroy entire ecosystems, contaminate ground water, cause the extinction of millions of species of life all without consequence, or so we believe.

The truth is this idea that we are separate from the rest of life is at the core of both our broader, societal issues and our internal unease with trusting others.

Because we believe ourselves to be separate, we feel alone and disconnected in the universe. This feeling manifests in a feeling of anxiety and a desire to control as much of the world as possible to prevent an indifferent world from causing harm to us. Hence, you see countries spending trillions of dollars on military weaponry to exert force in an attempt to control the world.

You see corporations spending trillions to extract timber, fossil fuel, fertile soil, and water to facilitate the conversion of the natural world into a fictitious commodity, money.

All of this would seem crazy to a culture that lived according to the knowledge that all life is interconnected. Not only is all life made up of the guts of exploding stars but we are connected through mirror neurons hard-wired to feel the emotional distress (and joy) of another.

Whatever we do to this world, we invariably do to ourselves. The problem is that western culture and institutions are founded on a lie that we are separate from the universe and the rest of life.

This pillar explores and confirms what has long been held as truth by indigenous peoples and mystics through the ages – namely, that we are deeply connected not just to each other but all of life.

If we are not willing to learn from the indigenous people who are eternal, more furious accidents are awaiting to strike soon to teach us that earlier lessons were ignored and we need fresh lessons, to make sure we learn it now.

Camerons is doomed

THE NEW STRAITS TIMES EDITORIAL15 NOVEMBER 2014 @ 8:10 AM

LAWLESSNESS seems to pervade in Cameron Highlands. If law enforcement has been effective, illegal land clearing could not have been as rampant and blatant as it is. The latest report says that some 1,000 hectares — a size equivalent to 1,400 football fields — have been illegally cleared in the past three months for farming. Only corruption and fear can allow for such criminality to occur right under the noses of law enforcers. Some attribute this to inadequate security personnel but the district officer’s (DO) request, made to the Home Ministry last year for the highlands’ law enforcement personnel to be armed, clearly highlights the latter. That it was shot down is no reflection of the reality of possible violence, a not unexpected scenario when dealing with criminal elements.

Now, suspicions of corruption are being slowly confirmed after the authorities threatened to get tough on offenders with the participation of a multi-agency force meant to rid the area of the cause of its rapid destruction — a fearful prospect for the country’s ecosystem. Already, water catchment areas are being destroyed and landslides occurring more frequently following heavy rains. And, only last week, a mud flood swept away lives and property. Inaction is no longer excusable, hence, the recent raids on illegal workers. Almost 200 have been apprehended thus far. While this demonstration of will by the federal authorities is happening, fear mounts. Recent months clearly showed that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) means business. Corrupt officers and private sector corruptors are being charged in court. Now, as the revamped, no longer toothless MACC is roped in, the nervous twitches have produced “yellow letters” of instruction to allow certain well-connected parties to open and develop the highlands, putting the Pahang Palace, though not the Royal House, in the line of fire. Meanwhile, a long-serving retired DO has come out declaring that corruption is nothing new. Apparently, everyone knew of it but nobody was able to stem the flow. Painting an image of Hollywood’s Wild, Wild West, these actions have brought Cameron Highlands to the brink of what geologists refer to as a catastrophe “of an unimaginable scale”.

The evidence of immense ecological degradation is now too obvious to ignore. While, thus far, the matter has been under the Pahang government’s jurisdiction, surely a threatened collapse of the entire hill system must warrant stern action from the federal authorities. Geologists have identified an already shaky hill structure caused by massive illegal clearing, removal of top soil, heavy siltation and excess groundwater. This year alone, there have been 150 mudslide incidents. So dire is the situation that the doomsayers are saying that the problem is beyond control. But surrender is not an option. First step, therefore, is aggressive law enforcement accompanied by nothing less than prison terms for all found guilty; from the lowly labourer through to the senior civil servants and implicated palace officials.

THE LOST PARADISE:

Rediscovering Sources of Wealth & Wellness from the Treasures of the Rainforest

By Wan Izzuddin Sulaiman

IF INTELLIGENCE MEANS the ability to take in and respond to information, then all organisms possess it, whether animal or plant, for they exchange signals and materials with their surroundings constantly. If intelligence means the capacity for solving puzzles or using language, then surely the ravens that clamour above me or the wolves that roam the far side of the mountains possess it. But if we are concerned with the power not merely to reason or use language, but to discern and define meanings, to evaluate actions in light of ethical principles, to pass on knowledge across generations through symbolic forms—then we are speaking about a kind of intelligence that appears to be the exclusive power of humans, at least on this planet.

Excerpt from Scott Russel Sanders, Mind in the Forest. Orion Magazine, Nov/Dec 2009.

If there is any paradise on earth, then that paradise could metaphorically be found somewhere in the rainforest. This is because the many reminiscent of paradise such as the grandeur, the beauty, and the abundance of life can all be found in the rainforest. In Southeast Asia lies the natural habitat of a 130 million years old nature’s gift to mankind, the tropical rainforest, a paradise on earth. Alfred Russel Wallace, a renowned naturalist who spent seven years wandering in the Southeast Asian rainforest and the jungles of the Malay Archipelago between 1854 - 1862 elegantly wrote,

“The first hour of morning in the equatorial regions, possesses a charm and a beauty that can never be forgotten. All nature seems refreshed and strengthened by the coolness and moisture of the past night; new leaves and buds unfold almost before the eye, and young shoots of the bamboo and other plants may be observed to have grown many inches since the preceeding day. The temperature is the most delicious conceivable. The slight chill of dawn, which was itself agreeable, is succeeded by an invigorating warmth; and the bright sunshine lights up the glorious vegetation of the tropics, and realizes all that the magic art of the painter or the glowing words of the poet, have pictured as their ideals of a terrestrial paradise . . ."   (Source: 'On the Climate & Vegetation of the Tropics,' an unpublished lecture given in Newcastle in 1867)

Much akin to the experience of the great naturalist, I traced my own profound love and passion for the rainforest from the constant and close intimacy I had with the jungles surrounding where I lived and grew up during the early years of my life. Born in a Malay kampung in rural Kelantan, northeast of the Malay peninsula in the 60s, the village where I was raised until the juvenile years was quintessentially surrounded by kebuns, or fruit orchards and smallholders rubber plantations. The village was also surrounded by many patches of small secondary forests called semak or belukar where lush green vegetations grew densely with each other competing for space, sunlight, water and air within a limited space. Dense undergrowth consisting of bunches of bamboo and rattan trees, ferns and yams, wild orchids, gingers and creepers, all sorts of wild berries unknown to me, and thorny shrubs impassable to walk through. The vivid images of vines came dangling on every branches and tree trunks, epiphytes of all shapes sprouting on the crevices found on tree barks, and those tall kebun trees like durian, mangosteen, duku, rambai and langsat trees (just to mention the familiar ones) bearing luscious fruits were the reminiscent of my paradise. These were the microcosm of the rainforest, recreated by our ancestors at the doorsteps of our homes. These were the playgrounds of us kampung boys, and girls too. We learned how to collect wild jambu butir banyak (pink guava), keladi (yams), kulat sisir (mushrooms) and kemunting berries. We acquired the skills to use tree branches and bamboos and nipah (Nypa fruiticans) trunks to make toys, floating rafts, bird traps, fishing rods, and hunting tools. There were also mini habitats of swampy sago and nipah palm stands where we would wade and rummage to search for the best fighting fish. We learned the skills of harvesting nectar from coconut inflorescence to make a juicy slightly fermented drink called tuak. We learned how to use the sheaths of banana trunks and the long runners of the creeper mempelas (Tetracera indica) to make ropes. We frequently used the berries of the local Rhododendron (senduduk or Melastoma malabathricum) as pellets for our bamboo air guns. We used the same senduduk berries which are purplish in colour and red resins oozing from the angsana bark to add colours to our wooden toys. When we have minor cuts and bruises we know how to treat them by applying the gel that oozes out from the stalk of keladi candik (Alocasia spp.), a wild yam. Our mothers would regularly collect the leaves of yet another yam, keladi kemoyang, (Homalomena pendula) and a weed kapal terbang (Chromalena odorata) to be grounded into herbal pastes used to wrap around their bellies post-partum. This story of intimacy with nature can go on and on. It was this intimacy and closeness to nature that inspired me to study Biology, Botany and Ecology for my Bachelor and Masters Degree education in the United States.  

Later in my adult life I again chanced these close encounters with the grandeur and the beauty that was of the rainforest, this time the encounter was of the professional kind. My vocation as a medical entomologist in the early 90s fortunately brought me to the fringes of the tropical jungles where Anopheline mosquitoes breed and spread deadly parasites such as the Malarial protozoans and the Filarial worms. During those days I spend countless nights trapping mosquitoes to investigate their bionomics and the zoonotic cycles, a phenomenon where pathogens are transferred from wild animals to humans through insect vectors. Those days and nights were literally filled with awe and many inspiring moments. The fresh and crisp air breathed by the forests, the cool mountain water came gushing into the streams, and the occasional lucky sightings of life tapir, elephants crossing a stream, wild roosters foraging along the jungle edges and hornbills swooping over the trees – were moments of epiphany, revered and remembered for the rest of my life. 

Perhaps this paradise is already lost, for the memories of luminescent mushrooms lighting the pitch darkness of the jungle floor, fireflies with blinking bellies dancing into the night and the mesmerizing sound of thousands of crickets, amphibians and other vociferous creatures singing the jungle chorus all night long are practically forever remain as memories of my paradise. Perhaps it was the best gift in my life. It is these cherished thoughts and recollections of paradise that I am turning into the subject of the love and passion of my life; the endless treasures, the great gift and the overwhelming providence of the rainforest to all of us.   

It is true that the rainforests evoke inspirations, solaces and epiphanies to those who contemplate. Beyond aesthetics, morality, intellectual and spiritual fullfilments, the rainforest provides practical social, economical and environmental benefits to the human civilization. Before goring the details on how human society can benefit from the rainforest, let us first take stock on this great ecosystem. The earth is divided into many distinct geographical and climatic areas or zones which are usually referred to as biomes or ecosystems. There are at least ten types of biomes or major ecosystems found on our planet. These are: (1) Tropical rainforest, (2) The deciduous forest, (3) The Taiga, (4) The Tundra, (5) The grasslands, (6) The Chaparral, (7) The desert, (8) The desert scrub, (9) The Savanna, and (10) The Alpine. Off course you can add a few more biomes such as the Mediterranean and the Polar regions and further sub-divide each of them.   

The tropical rainforest is definitely the most productive and perhaps the most important ecosystem compared to the rest mentioned above. Even though the tropical rainforest constitutes only about 6% of the total land area in the world today, it produces 40% of the earth’s oxygen and sinks the same portion of carbon dioxide from the air. Tropical rainforests around the world are the natural habitats of more than half of the plant species found on earth. The constant rainfall and the humid conditions of the tropical rainforest make these unique ecosystems very suitable for plants of various species and varieties to grow densely with each other, competing for the same resources in tight spaces within close proximity to each other.  A typical virgin tropical rain forest has more species of trees than any other biomes in the world. It is normal to find about 100 to 300 species thriving in one 2 1/2-acre (1-hectare) area of a virgin rainforest. This is a phenomenon referred to as “species diversity” or “biological richness”, terms that are now popularly known as “biodiversity”, a central reverberating theme in this book.

Figure 1: Locations of the tropical rainforest ecosystems on earth

(Source: http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/rainforest.htm)

As you can see in the map (Figure 1), there are three major tropical areas in the world, i.e. South and Central America (known as the Amazon), East Africa and Southeast Asia. The entire tropical rainforests, situated between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn along the equatorial belt, cover around 30 million square kilometres, which is only about 10 % of the earth surface.   Compared to the other two counterparts, the Southeast Asian rainforests are the oldest, dating back to the Pleistocene Epoch 70 million years ago. In terms of biodiversity, the Southeast Asian rainforest is also richer than that of the Amazon or African rainforests. Southeast Asia, which is a 3,100 mile long chain of about 20,000 islands strung between the Malay Archipelago and Australasia covers an area of 1,112,000 square miles, almost twice the size of Alaska. The heart of this Southeast Asian rainforest ecosystem lies in the island of Borneo, which until late Cretaceous era was a part of a contiguous land mass extending from what is today the Malay archipelagos, encompassing the Malay peninsular, islands of Java, Sumatra and the Philippines. This land mass was named as Sundaland.  

This vast area with similar climatic conditions, thriving on epochs of stable biotic and abiotic conditions, have made possible the gradual evolution of the most diverse families of flora and fauna ever found in the world. Even though the tropical rainforest cover only less than 10 % of the earth’s surface, they contain more than half of the entire animal and plant species on earth. These dense tropical forests are indigenous to some 1,671 known species of amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles. Of these, 13.9% are endemic, meaning they exist in no other places on earth, and 9.3% are threatened. Malaysia alone is home to at least 15,500 species of vascular plants, of which 23.2% are endemic. At least 1,000 of these vascular plants are palm trees. Between 1854 – 1862, the great Naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, lived in Southeast Asia and travelled widely in the region to collect and record specimens of living organisms. At the end of this eight year sojourn Wallace collected and brought back to London 125,600 specimens, 80,000 of these were different kinds of beetles. 

The Borneo rainforest itself is 130 million years old, making it the oldest rainforest in the world. The biological diversity in this third largest island in the world is mind boggling. It is the habitat of probably 15,000 species of flowering plants with 3,000 species of trees, 221 species of terrestrial mammals and 420 species of resident birds. The huge island is also home to 440 freshwater fish species (about the same as those found in Sumatra and Java combined). This astoundingly rich biodiversity is the results of millions of years of evolution and radiation of many endemic species of plants and animals. Many endemic mammalian species made Borneo their natural habitat, namely the orangutan, Asian elephant, the Sumatran rhinoceros, the Bornean clouded leopard, the Hose's civet and the dayak fruit bat. The World Wide Fund for Nature estimated that 361 animal and plant species have been discovered in Borneo since 1996. (Source: Wikipedia). Rainforests are also habitat to countless tiny organisms and micro-organisms – not easily seen with the naked eyes. A small patch of soil on the forest floor for example is a perfect micro-habitat for ants, spiders, lice, beetles, earthworms, millipedes, snails, slugs, nematodes, mites, flies larvae, fungi, bacteria and the algae – all exist in a complex interdependent web of life within a tightly knit sustainable community in self perpetuation millions of years old. 

It was once compared that one hectare of forest in North Michigan can only accommodate 8 species of trees whereas the same area in the Nicaraguan forest can support up to 200 species. Another study showed that 545 species of insects were collected in a hectare of forest in Costa Rica. The famous entomologist and great author E.O. Wilson once discovered 43 species of ants in a single tree in the tropics. In Southeast Asia trees of the rainforest are the main source of intrigue and mischief. A single family of tree dominates the forest – the Dipterocarpacea. Typically this family of trees constitutes 80% of the canopy and 40 % of the understory. Dipterocarps are characteristically trees with evergreen leaves and straight trunks reaching heights of up to 35 to 70 m (115 to 230 ft) or more, and trunk girths of over 2 m (6.6 ft) in diameter, therefore making these trees the best and the most valuable hardwood timber in the world. Examples of a typical dipterocarp are the species Seraya (Shorea curtisii) and Kapur (Dryobalanops aromatica) – two popular timber trees abundantly found throughout Malaysia.

This brings us to the subject of one of the most important utility of the rainforest, at least from the current economic point of view – its supply of timber to the world. Malaysia is one of the biggest producers of tropical hardwood timber with an export value of USD 6.1 billion in 2009 contributing to about 5% of its Gross Domestic Product. Despite being in the lead as the main exporter of timber for so many decades, and that forests were thought to be rapidly diminishing in size throughout the country, one official of the government was quoted as saying that the timber industry is not a “sunset” industry, and the industry will continue to grow to USD 17 billion a year by 2020, major importers being the European Union, United States and Japan. (Source: Malaysia aims to triple timber trade to USD 17 billion. Free Malaysia Today. 27 July, 2010). To harvest timbers we need to cut and clear the forests, and being the most fragile ecosystem on earth, once shattered it will require more than a century for the forests to recover. Even if we were to replant the trees, harvesting cycle will normally take 30 years. We shall find the answer later.   

First let us take cognizance on the actual stock of what remain of our rainforests. According to the Malaysian Timber Council, 59% or about 19.4 million hectares out of a total land area of 32.83 million hectares in Malaysia is forested or covered by forests. Of this 5.8 million hectares are in Peninsular Malaysia, 4.3 million hectares in Sabah and 9.24 million hectares in Sarawak. These forested areas do not include areas planted with crops such as oil palm and rubber. Most of these forested areas (74% or 14.29 million hectares) are gazetted as Permanent Reserved Forest (PRF or in Malay, HSK - Hutan Simpan Kekal) under the National Forestry Act 1984. The balance, 1.83 million hectares are devoted as National Parks and Wildlife Sanctuaries such as the Taman Negara.

Are we doing a great justice to mankind by saving a big chunk of our forests for the future generations? The answer depends on how we interpret the figures. Even though a huge chunk of the land mass in the country is covered with forests (about 59%), and that 74% of these forests are here to permanently stay (those PRFs), only 8.7% of these “permanent forests”, a total of only 3,820,000 hectares, are classified as primary forest, the untouched, pristine forests that exist in its primordial conditions, the most bio-diverse and carbon-dense form of forest. The rest are secondary forests that have been disturbed mostly by human activities, especially due to and agricultural activities. Once the primary forests were cut for logs, these forests were either left alone to re-grow and recover by itself or were replanted with new trees. Today about 1,870,000 hectares of the forest covers in Malaysia are planted forests. Between 1990 and 2010, Malaysia lost its forest cover on an average of 96,000 ha or 0.43% per year. In total, between 1990 and 2010, Malaysia has lost 8.6% of its forest cover, or around 1,920,000 ha.

Malaysia and Southeast Asia are not the only regions suffering from the rainforest destruction. The World Resources Institute estimates that each year some 13.7 million hectares of tropical forest around the world cut down. It was estimated that in the 90’s tropical forests around the world were being destroyed at an alarming rate of 28 hectares (70 acres) a minute, or about 14 million hectares (35 million acres) per year. Over the past three decades more than 5 million square miles (about 2 million square miles) or about 20 % of the world’s rainforests have been cleared. In a landmark study, NASA documented the loss of the rainforests in the state of Rondonia in western Brazil between 2000 – 2008. Using the time lapse Terra satellite images, NASA’s scientists constructed a map based on a vegetation index to track the changes over the years. What was a 208,000 square kilometres (51.4 million acres) of pristine rainforest in 2000 has been rapidly cleared of vegetation, giving way to roads and agriculture. By 2003 67,764 square kilometres or 30 % of the original forest have been cleared. (Source: Earthobservatory.nasa.gov) 

In Southeast Asia two commodity crops stands out as the main cause of the destruction of the rainforest: rubber and oil palm trees. Rubber has more than a hundred years of history in Southeast Asia. The first seeds of Hevea braziliensis, as the name suggests, were smuggled from Brazil by the British to the Kew Gardens in London in 1887. In 1888 a batch of 22 of these seedlings were send to the Singapore Botanical Gardens for trial planting, thereafter the rest was history. Mr Henry Nicholas Ridley who was appointed the Director of the Singapore and Penang Botanical Gardens in 1888 travelled across the Malayan peninsular to promote the planting of this new crop. In 1895 the first rubber plantation, a mere 2 hectares of rubber trees were planted amidst a coffee plantation belonging to the Kinderley brothers in Kuala Selangor. This was quickly followed by bigger plantations in Malacca, which then spread throughout the country. Within less than one hundred years rubber became the most dominant commodity crop in Malaysia when it reached the apex in the 1970’s and 1980’s with a total planted area of more than 1.5million hectares. The global slump of rubber prices in the 80’s have caused many planters to switch to a new golden crop: oil palm. By 2005, rubber area represented only 23.45% (1.250 million ha.) of the plantation industry’s total area of 5,305,765 ha. The area planted with oil palm was 4 million hectares (75.50%). The remaining area was shared by cocoa (33,500 ha or 0.63%), pepper (13,745 ha or 0.26%) and tobacco (8,520 ha or 0.16%). In 2005, palm oil and its downstream products contributed RM28 billion in export revenue while the rubber industry only contributes RM19.5billion.

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) has its own almost parallel history in Malaysia. The plant itself originated from West Africa and was introduced into Malaya, by the British in early 1870’s, originally as an ornamental plant. The first commercial planting took place in Tennamaran Estate in Selangor in 1917. The aggressive expansion of palm oil cultivation actually begun in the early 1960s, a few years after the country was granted independence by the British. The government and the investing public decided to diversify the commodity base economy and reduce the dependence on rubber and tins. The 1960s also saw the introduction of land settlement schemes for planting oil palm, giving rise to the government owned land scheme operator, FELDA, now the biggest plantation company in the world. Today, 4.49 million hectares of land in Malaysia is under oil palm cultivation. The country produces 17.73 million tonnes of palm oil and 2.13 tonnes of palm kernel oil annually.

About 90 % of world production of oil palm comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. It is estimated that the size of oil palm plantations in Indonesia will grow to a whopping 56 million hectares by 2025, making it the biggest producer in the world. The biggest purchasers of palm oil are food and cosmetic giants like Cargill, Nestle and Unilever. These big players alone consumes up to 1.4 million tons of palm oil annually. Total world demand of oil palm around the world was around 54 million tonnes in 2011. The major importers are China, United States, and the European Union.  About 90 % of all palm oils are being processed into food (fats), cosmetics, detergents, and also candles. Today Malaysia boasts to be the host of the biggest plantation company in the world, Felda Global Ventures, valued at several billion dollars during its listing in the stock market in 2012.  

The rainforests are fragile ecosystems. Once a primary forest is being destroyed it can only be replaced after scores of years, if ever. The decimation process of the forest starts by exposing the soil to severe erosion. The cutting, up-rooting and removal of canopies expose the top soil to leaching and surface runoffs brought by the perennial heavy downpours of the tropical rain.  During the leaching process the nutrients are washed deeper into the soil, causing the top soil to become increasingly infertile over time. Soil erosion and soil leaching both occur in parallel resulting in gradual lose in soil fertility. Losing fertility means losing the ability to regenerate with the same vigour the forest previously enjoyed. Succession will soon begin, but this time around more invasive species will often dominate the space instead of restoring the original diversity previously attained.   

Two ecologists, Lee Dyer and Deborah Letourneau described a phenomenon called “diversity cascade” in the forest of Costa Rica. They observed that when a new predator was introduced to the shrubs of a Piper (pepper family) plant, which are the natural hosts of a diversity of invertebrates and thus can be considered as a microcosm of the larger rainforest ecosystem, these invertebrate communities quickly altered and deteriorated. The diversity cascade phenomenon clearly supports the hypothesis that rainforests are indeed fragile ecosystems, very vulnerable to even minor disturbances and perturbations.  (Source: Earthwatch Institute: Ecologists Test the Fragility of Rainforest Communities. www.earthwatch.org)     

Mini cascades are happening everywhere once parts of the forests are being disturbed. These mini cascades add up to bigger cascades which then turn into catastrophes – loss of forest canopy, soil erosion and loss of soil nutrient, loss of biodiversity, and finally the loss of the paradise we called the rainforest. It is true that the countries in Southeast Asia, especially Malaysia and Indonesia, are still actively developing their economic base to sustain the growing population and to bring most of them out of poverty. And forests are considered as the most valuable natural assets these countries may have. The rights to economic development using one’s own resources within one’s own national boundaries are rightly inalienable. However whether this continuous expansion of economic activities in the form of logging, planting of rubber and oil palm trees, and in many areas the opening up of large forest tracks to highways, hydro-electric dams, highland agriculture, and human habitations are sustainable in the long term? The Harvard's Pulitzer Prize-winning biologist Edward O. Wilson poignantly reminded us:

"The worst thing that can happen during the 1980s is not energy depletion, economic collapses, limited nuclear war, or conquest by a totalitarian government. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired within a few generations. The one process ongoing in the 1980s that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly that our descendants are least likely to forgive us for”.

Tracking the Pathways to Sustainability: Green Economy & Bio-Economy

Today, our continuing progress is restricted not by the number of fishing boats but by the decreasing numbers of fish; not by the power of pumps but by the depletion of aquifers; not by the numbers of chainsaws but by the disappearance of primary forests.

Paul Hawken, Natural Capitalism.

There is everywhere the desire to conquer nature, but in the process the value of the conqueror himself, who is man, is destroyed and his very existence threatened.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Man and Nature, 1975.

Growing up in rural Kelantan in the 60’s was a real blessing to me. At the age of five our family moved to a remote village only accessible by boat along the mighty Kelantan River. My father was posted to the village to become the headmaster of a makeshift school built with attap roofs and soiled floors. Since there were no teachers’ quarters and there were no houses for rent in the village, our family resorted to staying on a “rumah rakit” or a “floating house”, a shabby hut built on a bamboo raft, tied to a big tree on the river bank. The raft was our home for a few months until the villagers were able to build a permanent one on the ground. Despite living in primitive conditions, the little house on the raft was a heavenly experience to me, forever cherished and well remembered in my life. Two years later the family moved back to our kampong, which is also located along the river bank of Kelantan River, about 90 km downstream. To me the image and the memory of the river was one of might and magnanimity, of life and sustenance, of water so clear, cool and fresh. As children we were taught to collect tiny clams called etak from the river beds, a delicacy snack once they are sun-dried and slightly salted. We followed the adults at night to scoop the giant prawns udang galah from their nesting sites along the river banks. During play, we were cautioned by the adults not to be too daring to swim into the deep pools or lubuks of the river, lest fishes as large as we were would bite and eat us alive – a scare tactic to prevent us from drowning, but big fishes were real, minus the biting mouthparts. Rivers were once the centre of our life, our paradise, a place where life springs forth and thence blossoms. But, these were only memories of my river paradise. 

Today, I dare not bring my children to the Kelantan River for them to experience a glimpse of my youth. For the pristine and clean Kelantan River is gone, its water turbid brown with suspended soil particles, its banks soft and muddy, the river beds thick with silt, and its etak and udang galah and ikan patin are scarce. Seen from an aeroplane, the Kelantan River is a yellow band of line cutting across the green landscape. We used to refer this colour to the colour of our favourite drink “teh tarik”, tea mixed with sweetened condensed milk. What is left with Kelantan River is just a sight of shame and a burden of guilt. Decades of intensive clearing of jungles and forests in its watershed area upstream for the extraction of timber and for the cultivation of oil palm have caused an environmental catastrophe beyond anybody’s expectation. In a landmark study by Ambak and Zakaria in 2009, the investigators reported that nine major species of fish in the river was considered as critically endangered. Earlier studies in the early and mid 90s showed that the Kelantan river system was still rich in freshwater fishes, supporting a total of 55 species. Within one generation, the Kelantan River ecosystem is practically dead, devoid of its lustre and vigour. The role of Kelantan River in sustaining a living ecosystem, irrigating paddy fields, supplying drinking water, and freshwater fishes and prawns are no longer viable; its river delta and estuaries turned shallow due to heavy siltation, the water pumps supplying municipal water frequently clog due to silts, and during dry spells the irrigation canals run dry due to blockages of mud and silt near the pump houses – a dear price paid in the name of development and progress.     

The 20^th century has indeed witnessed an unprecedented “progress” in man’s many abilities to dominate and conquer nature.  Man has transgressed beyond their traditional role as the custodian and guardian of nature and instead has become a master that enslaves nature to the utmost benefits, only for himself. Man has crossed the fine line between being a steward of the environment and being a dominator and conqueror of the environment. The abilities to mass produce and mass consume, to transport goods and travel over long distances, to scale mountains and traverse rivers and oceans, to cultivate crops and breed animals in mass quantities over large tracts of land, and to build roads and bridges across the hinterlands are the many successes of the 20^th century man, never seen before in history. But, can this trajectory of economic growth continue forever? Whether the growth is actually sustainable in the long run, and continues to support life sustainably in the coming centuries remains as an open contention. Can we continue to literally treat mother earth as an Eden where “milk and honey” flow perpetually and profusely, satisfying Adam’s and Eve’s every lusts and desires? Or is the mother earth really a temporary abode that was once a paradise, but forever lost? In our quest to restore and recover this lost paradise, we need to pursue business in the unusual way. New paradigms of economic development have to be introduced. New approaches and understanding on the concepts such as “growth and development” and “sustainability” have to be clarified in depth. New economic agendas such as the “green economy” and “bio-economy” have to be introduced and properly planned. These are the pathways that will hopefully guide us back to the lost Eden.

As Malaysia emerges to become a developing country from what was once a colonial outpost, where most of its people were peasants and traditional farmers, economic growth and development or in the Malay language pembangunan were the jargons most popularly espouse by our political leaders in their speeches over radios and televisions to explain what and how will they develop the country. Growth and development became two most recurring mantras for the last five decades since we achieve independence in 1957. Unfortunately growth is often confused and thought to be synonymous with development. Robert Goodland in a landmark article entitled The Concept of Environmental Sustainability offered a very clear demarcation of the two seemingly synonymous terms. According to Goodland, growth means to “increase in size”, whereas develop means to “improve or to expand or realize the potentialities”. While growth refers to quantitative or material increase, development is associated with qualitative improvement. Planet earth never grows in size, but the quality of the planet may develop, either for better or for worse. Quantitative growth should not be mistaken with qualitative development at all times. The two may not be synonymous compatible in all situations. While growth may be thought to be infinite, the environmental resources are finite. The scale of economic growth may exceed the capacity of the environment to absorb the impacts of growth in a sustainable manner. There are limits to growth, and development has to be sustainable. 

The debate on sustainable growth and development hinges on our grasp and understanding on the concept of “sustainability” itself. When Gro Harlem Brundtland, a three times Prime Minister of Norway, a diplomat extraordinaire and a physician, during her tenure as Chair of the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development (also known as The Brundtland Commission) garnered a worldwide consensus that nations should embark on a sustainable development pathway, many were grappling with what is precisely the meaning of “sustainability”. It was clear that there were three areas of development that would demand sustainability – the environment, the society, and the economy. For all purposes and intents, sustainability should encompass all the three areas mentioned. Sustainability can be expressed as meeting the present environmental (ecological), societal and economic needs without compromising the needs of the future generations. A society where poverty is still rampant and social equity is conspicuously missing will not achieve environmental sustainability. An economy which is continuously liquidating the natural capital from its forests and natural resources without achieving the goals of social justice and a well balanced society will not be able to achieve economic sustainability. Sustainable development should therefore integrate all three intricately related areas of human development; the society, the environment and the economy.  

Sustainability is a popular buzzword for the politicians. Many would join the bandwagon by only paying lip service without really understanding the far reaching significance of the word. In launching the New Economic Action Plan, the Prime Minister of Malaysia outlined three principles guiding the new development plan for the country in 2010: high income economy, sustainability, and inclusiveness. Beyond political rhetoric, achieving sustainability would require immaculate planning, concrete steps to be taken and long term investments to be allocated.  Theoretically a high income economy can be compatible with sustainability, only if it is non-invasive to the environment and so long as it is not threatening to nature. For nature has to be perpetually nurtured to ensure that the economy is to be sustainable. Malaysia’s blueprint for the New Economic Model (NEM) issued by the advisory body National Economic Advisory Council (NEAC) admitted that the country’s “dependence on natural resource consumption as the primary engine of growth is clearly not sustainable” and under the NEM “investment and policy decisions should only be made after full consideration of their long term impact on the society, the economy as a whole, and of course the environment”. Whether these commitments are realized into concrete actions remain to be seen.     

The Malaysian Government has announced and implemented a few initiatives to include ‘green’ economy as part of the country’s development process. The Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water was set-up by the government to promote ‘green’ industry in the country. Malaysia’s vision of a ‘green’ economy would see it explores tremendous potential for ‘green’ technology growth within four targeted sectors namely energy, construction, transportation, and water and waste management. But what is exactly “green economy?” Is it just another buzzword that is politically potent but economically not worthwhile for the country to pursue? The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) defined green economy as an economy that improves human well-being and social equity while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities. A ‘green’ economy aims at sustaining natural capital and maintaining the long term viability of life on earth by eliminating resource depletion, reducing wastage, optimizing the use of renewable sources of energy, the production of new bio-materials and in general improving the quality of the environmental services provided by nature.

The government of Malaysia seems to be receptive to the idea of creating new opportunities to support the initiatives of becoming a ‘green’ economy nation. Two initiatives are being undertaken to help realise this goal, which are the introduction of National Eco-labelling Programme and the National Green Procurement Policy. Funding from the Green Technology Financing Scheme was also launched to support the growth of green technologies in the country. The New Economic Model (NEM) has identified five key global trends that have to be taken into serious consideration in charting our nation’s growth. One of these trends is that the whole world is undergoing a green revolution everywhere, and we should follow suit. The NEM envisioned that, and being a hotspot of biodiversity with rainforests covering more than half of our land mass, Malaysia should “embrace a leadership role in green technology and become a strategic niche player in high value green industries and services that play to our competitive advantages”. An important competitive advantage for Malaysia is the rich biological resources within the country’s land and sea territories. The NEM sees that “Malaysia’s natural resource endowment can be used in creative and sustainable ways as a base to build new, diverse, high value, high tech industries and services”.    

The constant struggle between the ruthless exploitation of nature by governments and corporations and the environmental awakening movement driven mostly by private citizens in the 20^th century is probably coming to a desirable conclusion: victory is near for the environmentalists, even though at times victory is always elusive.  At the dawn of the 21^st century, a new economic shift has taken shape globally, led by the developed world. Following the pathway of the Green Economy in the developed world, the rest of the world is now gradually entering into a new economy, one that is characterised as the “bioeconomy”. From a broad economic perspective, bioeconomy refers to the set of economic activities relating to the invention, development, production and use of biological products and processes to help improve human lives and societal well-being. It is a new economy based on the applications of the knowledge and discoveries made in the biological and life sciences. The applications of these technologies are expected to improve health and well-being, boost the productivity of agriculture and industrial processes, and enhance environmental sustainability. One of the core technologies driving the bioeconomy is the field of biotechnology, defined as the application of knowledge, science and technology derived from our understanding on how biological molecules and organisms work. Our recent understanding on biological processes such as the intricate functions of the smallest DNA fragments, the workings of microbes in decomposing organic matters on the forest floor, the fine techniques of rearing and releasing biological control agents in pest eradication, the use of enzymes in converting cellulosic materials into simpler compounds in ethanol fuel production– all these knowledge are being used to transform we made our medicines, improve our industrial processes and save our environment.

Due to the knowledge intensive content of the bioeconomy, the concept is often coined as the “Knowledge-Based Bio-Economy” (KBBE), an economy which would rely heavily on knowledge workers who are well educated and trained in the field of life sciences. If applied in its full rigour the impact of the bioeconomy on our national economy and the society is wide and pervasive.  Various sectors of the economy that manage and otherwise make use of biological resources such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food, chemicals, tourism, pharmaceuticals and energy will have their relevance in the new bioeconomy. However one challenge remains to be very formidable; by nature bioeconomy is knowledge intensive, therefore it would require a well developed knowledge infrastructure to be instituted, a rich and varied talent pool of knowledge workers to be made available and a totally conducive environment for these knowledge workers to thrive have to be in place. Developing and maintaining adequate talent pool is a strong pre-requisite to the bio-economy. Otherwise the vision of a knowledge-based bio-economy will be just castles in the air, without any entrenched foundations firmly footed on earth.

To the credit of the Malaysian government, concrete initial steps towards the adoption of the green economy & bioeconomy were charted in the National Key Economic Action Plan. Datuk Seri Idris Jala, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and the Chief Executive Officer of PEMANDU presented the government’s audacious plan for the Malaysian bioeconomy at the BioBorneo Conference 2012 in Kuching, Sarawak, outlining six major government initiatives (called entry point projects, EPP) to drive the transformation of the country’s economy towards becoming a high income nation by 2020 with a target Gross National Income of USD 15,000 per capita by the year 2020). The six EPPs are:

1.      EPP 1 – the development of nutraceutical and botanical drugs from the bioactives derived from Malaysian herbal materials;

2.      EPP 6 – the development of high value oleo derivatives and the downstream processing of oil palm products;

3.      EPP 7 – the acceleration of commercialization of second generation bio-fuel from biomass;

4.      EPP 10 – the increase in renewable energy uptake by the country’s electricity generation from 1% to 5.5 % by 2015;

5.      EPP 14 – the development of high quality breeding materials in animals and crops using DNA marker technology;

6.      EPP 20 - the establishment of premium ecotourism destination through the promotion of Malaysia as a biodiversity hub.

However promising these entry point projects are, they are actually only “entry points”. There are follow-throughs that need to be carefully implemented and watched. Green economy and bioeconomy are not mere rhetorical jargons for the consumption of the politicians to win elections. These are not licenses to pillage the environment, land grab in the rainforests and further intrusions into the hinterland either. In the past decades we have sacrificed many of our natural environments in the name of poverty eradication & national development. It is also not a license to invite multi-national corporations to exploit our national resources and given access to acres of farming lands at the expense of local farmers and taxpayers money in the name of Foreign Direct Investment. Often these multinationals were given tax breaks and other fiscal and financial incentives not enjoyed by local entrepreneurs and farmers. The Malay proverb says, “kera dihutan disusui, anak yang dikendong kelaparan”, (monkeys in the jungles were milked, child in the arm left hungry). The bioeconomy’s success is therefore not guaranteed. There are many pitfalls and harnessing its potential will require coordinated policy action and meticulous planning by governments.  Corruption, greed, inefficient and inept bureaucracy, incompetency and poor resource allocation will render the governments’ entry point initiatives to suffer premature death, or worst still, becoming stillborns.

A major unresolved issue in Malaysia is the question of the sustainability of the country’s oil palm industry, one of the country’s biggest income earner. Malaysia is a world leader of the industry by enjoying the “first mover” advantage and being ahead of the curve in planting and managing huge plantation estates. However we may have become the victim of our own success. Despite the competitive advantage, the industry suffers from three major limitations, namely (1) Land scarcity – we just cannot expand anymore, (2) Labour scarcity – the industry thrives on cheap foreign manpower, and (3) Rising production costs – input costs are increasing.  These challenges are increasingly becoming real threats to the long term sustainability of the industry. The country simply cannot ignore these issues and continue its business as usual. To be sustainable the palm oil industry must make sure that it continues to operate at minimal impact on the environment from the time of planting through to processing the oil in the mills. However, the current practice in the industry, from forest clearing to the cultivation and agronomic practices, from planting the seedlings to the fruit production and finally to the processing the fresh fruit bunches at the mill – are teeming with numerous threats against sustainability, impacting a trail of many possible collateral damages to the environment along the way. Deforestration, displacement of wild animals, species extinction, destruction of watershed, soil erosion, loss of soil fertility, siltation of streams, displacement of local communities, and many more environmental and social threats.

In response to these environmental and social concerns, non-governmental organizations, the industry and government stakeholders teamed up to launch the Round-Table for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2004. One of the body's top mandates was to define and develop credible standards entailing what is considered as a "sustainable" palm oil production. The standard was released in 2005, containing certain prescribed principles which include “a commitment to transparency on environmental, social and legal issues; environmental responsibility with regard to waste, resource use, and climate; and responsible consideration for workers, individuals, and communities affected by palm oil production”. More than 70 producers worldwide are beginning to implement the RSPO principles as of last year, more than half of them are from Indonesia. In total about 1.5 million tons of palm oil was certified last year.

RSPO is at best “work in progress”. The greatest challenge for RSPO is to manage tensions between the market that are demanding for better and stricter criteria in defining sustainability and the pressure from growers to reduce costs but at the same time wanting to claim a price premium over certified sustainable products.  One of the most contentious issues is on the criteria of sustainability when it comes to growers opening up the forests for a new plantation area. A grower is accorded the sustainable status if it opened up forests that are deemed not “high value conservation forest”. How this is defined remains vague and it is up to the countries themselves to make the definition. In October, 2011 GAPKI (an independent organization representing 500 growers in Indonesia has quit RSPO) and in April, 2013 the Malaysian counterpart (MPOA, representing 130 members) is mulling to quit as well.   

However RSPO still commands respect and authority among the major industry consumers around the world. For example Unilever, which consume about 1.6 million tons of palm oil and its derivatives per year (amounting to 3% of world production), is making strong commitments to purchase only from certified sustainable palm oil by 2015. Unilever defines sustainability in Agriculture as “productive, competitive, and efficient, while at the same time protecting and improving the natural environment and the conditions of the local people”. The company believes that sustainable agriculture should support the following principles:

• •        It should produce crops with high yield and nutritional quality to meet existing and future needs, while keeping resource input as low as possible;
• •        It must ensure that any adverse effects on soil fertility, water and air quality and biodiversity from agricultural activities are minimised and positive contributions are made where possible;
• Itshould optimise the use of renewable resources while minimising the use of non-renewable resources;
• •        Sustainable agriculture should enable local communities to protect and enhance their well-being and environment.

There is also a widespread resistance and negative campaigning against the oil palm industry, especially in Europe. Anti Palm Oil website saynotopalmoil.com for example claimed that most of palm oil in Southeast Asia comes from unsustainable sources. They also alleged that RSPO an organization that cannot be trusted. Our local oil palm industry indeed has a long way to go to be on the path of sustainability.

Another major issue in Malaysia is the question of the sustainability of our forestry industry. Malaysia is said to be duly committed to manage her forests in a sustainable manner, not just for economic reasons but also for maintaining environmental stability and ecological balance. In order to achieve this noble objective, the government said they will continue to maintain at least 50% of its land area to remain under forest cover on a permanent basis. Out of the total land mass of 32.9 million hectares, half or about 18.9 million hectares are covered by natural forest. As mentioned in Chapter 1, out of this, a total of 14.1 million hectares of natural forests have been designated as the Permanent Forest Estate or PFE, protected through various legislations. The PFE will be permanently managed to serve the various objectives such as production, protection, social and education purposes. For purposes of conservation and education 3.39 million hectares were allocated in the form of national parks, wildlife sanctuaries and nature reserves. Beyond the PFE there are pockets of Virgin Jungle Reserves (VJR) such as Templer Park, Ampang Hills, and Bukit Damansara reserves around Kuala Lumpur city. To date, a total of 120 VJRs covering 111,726 hectares have been established in Malaysia. Taking into account the network of protected areas and the VJRs the area that has been designated for the conservation of biological diversity around the country totals about 5.19 million hectares or 27.3% of its total forested land. The cost of maintaining these assets in the most sustainable manner is also very high, estimated around MYR 1.2 billion per year, financed mostly through timber royalties and levies. The goal has always been to ensure a continuous flow of the desired environmental related products and services from the forests, without “undue reduction of its inherent values and future productivity and without undue desirable effects on physical and social environment”.

A good example worth examining is on how an otherwise wasted forest biomass could be turned into valuable natural capital or assets. By today’s timber industry practice in Malaysia as well as in other developing countries around the world, biomass from the forests where trees are harvested for timber are almost entirely wasted. The term biomass in general refers to the organic matters that are available on a renewable and recurring basis that includes trees, plant matters, offal, animal refuse and tallow from living organisms. In terms of forest products, biomass usually refers to the materials that are lower in value as compared to those that are being used for food, feed, lumber or fibre. During harvesting operations, quite a major volume of the tree biomass is left behind as “woody debris” such as the tops, branches, stumps and the roots. Only the trunks are being transported out for lumber or for pulp and paper. These “biomass wastes” are often left behind in the forest as slash piles, sometimes being burnt or just left on the forest floor to decompose.  Decomposition is a very slow process especially when the ecosystem is already being destroyed. Actually these materials are considered as waste because they are not being put to commercial use, and there is no economic value to the materials. It is estimated that the so-called waste may be as high as 75 to 80 percent of the volume of a forest stand. A study commissioned by the USDA and USDE estimated that the value of these biomass could reach USD 1 billion per year in the United States, almost all gone to waste. Now scientific and technological advances have changed on how we view these biomaterials. A range of new technologies called torrefaction where woody biomass are being burned or underwent pyrolysis at temperatures typically ranging between 200 and 320 °C in order to obtain a much better fuel quality for combustion and gasification applications.

One may rightly say that the paradise that was of our rainforests and natural ecosystems are already lost, probably forever. The collateral damages on the environment brought by decades of unsustainable logging practices and massive clearing of virgin forests to give way to agriculture were too detrimental and had been very costly. However, the pathways to restore our lost paradise seem to be quite clear and the beacons of hope can be seen in the horizon, but not devoid of challenges and obstacles. We may have to pay dearly to recover this paradise. 

References

1.   

1. Goodland, Robert. The Concept of Environmental Sustainability. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, Vol. 26 (1995), 1 – 24.
2.  National Economic Advisory Council. The New Economic Model. 2010.
3. OECD. The Bioeconomy to 2030: designing a policy agenda. OECD Publications (2012).
4. Columnist – Making palm oil sustainable. New Straits Times. 22 Dec 2011.
5. RSPO
6. Unilever
7. Ambak & Zakaria