This is indeed a sad day for me as I post some of the disturbing pictures I took on a recent trip to a beautiful piece of wetland that is currently being destroyed in South East Johor. This is the Kingdom of Betta tomi and Cryptocoryne purpurea. Well at least the B.tomi can still survive because they are found deeper in the forest, but there is no hope at all for C.purpurea who’s habitat is just being destroyed.
Well only pictures can tell a thousand words coz seriously…I just dont know what to say!
View of Pandanus forest that might be spared
Plastic bag markers to indicate area that should be destroyed
Pandanus forest that might be axed. Observe the murky water condition
Tractors seen here destroying the surrounding forest
Tractor with longer arm to clear debris from river and smoothen river edges
Cleared area on the left and yet-to-be cleared area on right
Cleared and smoothen river edges-JPS style!
Approaching the upper part of the river. The stream on the left used to be a crystal clear black water river
This used to be the crystal clear black water stream. On the right are the remaining peat swamps. The left are the cleared forest for oil palm
According to the workers we met along the river, this project is headed by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) or JPS in Malay. All of this was done simply because the oil palm estate in the upper part of the swamp was flooding. They blamed the thick clumps of Pandanus of holding back the water from draining freely back into the river. These idiots have forgotten that they are the ones responsible of clearing the forest upstream which led to an increase of inflow into the river during haevy rains. This also includes heavy sedimentation. Not only that, knowing very well that the surrounding swamp is even lower that sea level, they still went ahead and planted oil palm there…right till the rivers edge!
The DID as usual didn’t even check with other relevant environmental bodies or NGO’s before embarking on their exploit thus destroying the extremely rich biodiversity of our swamps. Now the poor villages who depend on fisheries would soon see a depleting catch after a few years as the Pandanus forest and the other aquatic/riparian forest provide crucial breeding grounds for all kinds of fish and other aquatic fauna.
View of JPS (DID) approved river system!
Owl that was found floating amongst the debris
We managed to save this poor guy before releasing him to the nearby undisturbed forest
View of destroyed forest. This includes all the crypt sites found along the river banks
Among the other soon-to-be-displaced residents
Yet another soon to be displayed resident
"Who is going to help us?"
During our trip there we also encountered so much more wildlife further in the swamp forest. These include tracks of wildboar, deer, tapir and elephant droppings! We were also told that there are sunbears and tigers there. Hornbills, eagles etc were also seen around the whole swamp.
Tractors with long boom arms like these are used to drag in all the debris and all the river side vegetation, including the huge beds of crypts
5:13 pm on September 25th, 2009 1
Absolutely tragic piece of activity by unfeeling, greedy humans.
We can only continue to write to governments protesting and hope that they will take notice but I have my doubts.
They need to find more sustainable ways of generating income
It makes you weep!!
8:40 pm on October 1st, 2009 2
A part of the tragic fact for wild life, Bornean forest content a large amount of Carbon in shape of large layer of leaves debris. This carbon was stocked for millions of year due to the growth of the forest. Large amounts of carbon in the atmosphere in ancients times was collected by trees and buried year by year along millions of years. If we destroy the vegetal cover, that carbon will go to the atmosphere again, increasing the problem of climate change. For me that is the real disaster.
2:51 am on February 28th, 2010 3
Hi Herman,
It is very sad to see this loss of beautiful habitat, wildlife and biodiversity. I guess this area could be in ulu Sedili Kecil? Thanks for highlighting this. The owl floating on the log in the river looks like Buffy Fish Owl and the one in the boat looks like the juvenile of the same owl. If you can send larger pix of the owls I may give a more positive ID. Why were they in the river and water?? It’s very unusual to see owls floating on logs in rivers in the day time! And the oil barons in the palm oil industry say that our forests are not being cleared for oil palm. Shame on them! Look at the effects of the clearing on wildlife. It looks like a similar painful scene I have seen at Kinabatangan floodplains in Sabah some years ago.
Cheers,
Mike
6:21 pm on March 1st, 2010 4
This case is just tip of the iceberg, and believe me, there are feeling proud instead of shame of their actions.
10:29 pm on March 2nd, 2010 5
Hi Mike,
The latest news is that they have stopped the work as forestry department has made a big fuss over the illegal clearing…so that’s good news. Together with the noise created by MNS and other press coverage has indeed helped a lot. However, I still need to go in and check the extent of the damage done. Will let you’ll know the outcome later
10:19 am on February 6th, 2011 6
How did it go? Did you ever get a chance to go back and assess the damage done? Thanks for publishing this!