Malaysian highlands hit by land clearing for farms

On the tree-lined patio of a colonial-style hotel, tourists sip their drinks as they enjoy the cool air that many come to Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, for.

Their view of the lake in front of them, fortuitously, is blocked by the foliage. If it was not, all they would see is a muddy brown body of water, no thanks to silt building up over the years.

Sultan Abu Bakar lake has been like this for more than two decades, said Mohamad Ariffin, 45, a vegetable distributor who has lived here all his life.

“People stopped hanging out by the lake after the water got more and more murky,” he told The Straits Times.

It is not just the colour of the water in the lake and rivers that troubles residents and environmentalists about Cameron Highlands, one of Malaysia’s top exporters of vegetables and flowers and one of Singapore’s sources of fresh vegetables, from capsicum and cabbage to iceberg lettuce.

Years of development and illegal clearing of hillside land for farming have turned the area into an environmental hot spot.

Farms and hotels are perched – some precariously – on the slopes. In some places, gigantic plastic sheets plaster the hillside to prevent the soil from loosening and triggering a landslide.

Environmentalists say that as more forest vegetation is cleared to make way for farms, it is causing more and more silt to build up in the rivers, including Sungai Bertam and the Sultan Abu Bakar hydroelectric dam. During heavy rain, the rivers and dam are likely to overflow, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.

Last week, water released from the nearly full dam triggered a flash flood that swept Ringlet, a district in Bertam Valley, leaving three people dead and hundreds of homes and vehicles destroyed.

Residents said the waves of water that gushed through the village, carrying mud and debris, were as high as 4m. Many watched in horror from the upper floors of their homes as the mudflow destroyed their furniture, television sets and refrigerators downstairs.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Najib Razak announced when unveiling the 2014 Budget that 40 million ringgit (US$12.7 million) would be allocated to widen and deepen a 3km stretch of the river, and that people living along that part of the river would be relocated.

This will take two to three years, Natural Resources and Environment Minister G. Palanivel said last Saturday.

But environmentalists and geologists say that deepening the river is merely treating the symptoms that could cause a flash flood like the one last week. Excessive rubbish and a lack of silt traps in farms will eventually narrow the river banks again, they argue.

“The government needs to ensure that farms have proper silt traps and farmers stop clearing land illegally,” geologist Tajul Anuar Jamaluddin at the National University of Malaysia told The Straits Times. “If not, such a tragedy is bound to happen again.”

In the 1990s, the Pahang state government stopped issuing temporary operating licences for land-clearing in response to environmental concerns.

But many farms have taken advantage of lax enforcement to encroach onto state land illegally as demand for vegetables rises.

Activists claim some 1,200 hectares of land is being cleared illegally for vegetable farming now. Many foreign workers have also been brought in illegally to work and squatter houses are built there.

A farmer who wanted to be known only as Liew claimed that such illegal expansion goes unchecked because some farmers have bribed officers.

“The farmers don’t mind paying because they know they will make back from the profits of selling more vegetables,” he said.

Last year, Malaysia’s Anti-Corruption Commission said it was investigating allegations that some people, including staff of the Cameron Highlands district and land office, had leaked details about raids on illegal land-clearing.

The status of the probe is unknown.

Meanwhile, a community- based group, the Regional Environmental Awareness Cameron Highlands, is doing what it can to get farmers and schoolchildren to recycle plastic sheets and containers used in farming and not to throw them into the river.

“It is only in the past few years that more farmers are paying attention to farming sustainably,” said Carroll Lawrence, 44, a founding member and volunteer of the group.

“We still have a long way to go.”

Malaysian highlands hit by land clearing for farms