Tag Archives: Government

First Malaysia Day Celebration

Malaysia gains its independence on 31 August 1957. We celebrate this date as National Day every year. However, to Sabah people, 16 September 1963 (a.k.a. Malaysia Day) is more matter. Sabah never “joined” Malaysia. We “formed” Malaysia with Malaya and Sarawak. Since I was a little boy, I have been hearing Sabah people complain that federal government didn’t value the meaning of Sep 16.

After 47 years, we had our first national-level celebration of Malaysia Day on last Thursday at Padang Merdeka of Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Well, we all know why. Barisan Nasional (BN) lost a lot of seats in 308 election. Sabah and Sarawak, the “deposit” of BN votes, have become the feet of BN. They can no longer afford to ignore our voices. Whatever, at least we have one more public holiday added to the calendar. Hope everyone is happy now.

Of course I didn’t miss the first celebration of Malaysia Day. I was quite interested in photographing the first Malaysia Day Signing Ceremony. The Malaysia Day Book has 100 pages, to be signed annually for 100 years of Malaysia Day (if our country lasts that long).

Every government function starts with political propaganda. Prime Minister was trying to market 1Malaysia concept, though Sabah has been long practicing it.

Prime Minister started the first signing of Malaysia Day Book. There were dozens of photographers and media went after this shot. Luckily I also got mine.

Next is Sabah Chief Minister. Should be a great remembrance for him before retirement…

Signed by Deputy Chief Minister of Sarawak. Hope their CM will also retire soon. Poor Penan people..

Signed by the Sabah minister of tourism (also the organizer).

Signing Ceremony done. This book will be kept in the museum.

Performance followed, to show the past, present and future of Malaysia.

Since Malaysia Day is more for East Malaysians, the show had a lot of cultural elements of Sabah and Sarawak. It’s really a Sabahan event coz the audiences left many rubbish behind, despite repeated advices from the organizer, a true reflection of Sabah people. If we don’t like people say we live on trees, please behave like a civilized human. Personally I also have seen many rich people throw rubbish out of the car windows of their expensive cars.

It has been raining every late afternoon. Fortunately the weather was ok that day. The heavy rain came 1 hour after the end of show. Then it rains again every evening until today.

There were too many media and photographers around, so my movement was very restricted. I could only take photos from the side.

Buy expensive and inferior Malaysia products! Do we have choices, other than Proton, StreamyX, Bernas and SESB?

Overall the show was ok. But the venue is terrible, too small. Imagine thousands of people flooded the area no bigger than a football field. But this venue is the place where Malaysia was declared. Hopefully next year they will hold the event in Likas Stadium. I was a bit surprised that there was no lion dance.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Tawau, the ecology desert

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Last month I was on a morning flight to Tawau and sat next to the window. When the plane approached Tawau and started to descent, I took out my camera, hoping to snap some beautiful aerial shots of Tawau. It ended up as a big disappointment because I saw only sea of oil palm, on the land, on the hill, next to the river, everywhere… There was also evident of forest being clear for planting of oil palm.

Actually you don’t need to be on the sky to see this. Just drive from Lahad Datu to Tawau. Along the way, you will see only oil palm. Everytime I passed by, I sighed in my heart, “the ecotourism of Tawau is over..” Most tourists also find this view an eyesore, as they know oil palm plantation is mainly responsible for clearing of Borneo rainforest and destroy of orangutan habitat. The tourists, who go for diving in Semporna, don’t even want to stop over in Tawau for a night. “What to see here? Oil palm forest?” I feel sorry for people of Tawau. They have no orangutan, proboscis monkey, elephant…

Currently Sabah is happily harvesting the fruits of ecotouri$m, as most tourists want to see our well-preserved nature. We are enjoying the success now, due to the right things we did 10 or 20 years ago. If we don’t stringently protect our forest now, we may not see the negative effects until 10 years later. Even Sandakan, our ecotourism city, can end up like Tawau one day, and it will be too late to do anything. The recent serious flood of Kinabatangan River was NOT the act of God. It was caused by overlogging and excessive land clearing. Do you know that oil palm plantation is taking 70%++ of Kinabatangan Floodplain now? Of course the politician will not want to highlight this.

Under the regulations, slopes that are too steep should not be clear. But look at the photo above. Oil palm is all over the hilly region. Can the authority explain why this happens? Who is responsible? Forestry Dept? Land and Survey Dept? Or Environment Protection Dept? Where is the enforcement?

Probably the only forest Tawau left are Tawau Hills Park and Bukit Gemok. Look at the photos below, and you will see oil palm is engulfing the forest area. It is so saddening. No wildlife can survive in such small patches of fragmented forest.

Maliau Basin (a.k.a. The Lost World), though not really inside Tawau district, should be monitored closely. It looks like a volcano crater but it is not. It is a disastrous decision that government allows the logging of timber in its buffer zone. Even politicians from Peninsular Malaysia are dripping for this natural treasure, which is full of coal and timber. The building of coal power plant would threaten this pristine forest, as it opens up an excuse for government to mine its coal. Remember the lesson of copper mine of Mamut? Its pollution is such a disaster that nobody can resolve it until today. We better watch out what government is doing, to prevent it from making second Mamut.

Just say NO to coal power plant. Politicians want to make it sounds like the only choice, “No coal plant = No electricity.” The fact is – we can have both electricity and a clean environment with alternative energy such as hydro-generated power. If you believe what the government says, you die lah. There is no such thing as “clean coal”, like there is no “clean shit”. If WWF says coal power plant sucks, then it sucks, no matter what others say.

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The Land Below the Oil Palm

Photos taken in Tawau, Sabah Malaysia

The Land below the Oil Palm

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If you drive along the road at Sandakan, Tawau and Lahad Datu, you will see an endless sea of oil palm, instead of scenic countryside covered with lush forest. Funny thing is – Tourism Malaysia setup some ad billboards, right in front of some oil palm plantation, portraying Sabah as the ecotourism destination. The disappointed tourists would ask, “is oil palm your primary forest?” The oil palm plantation is such an eyesore, whenever I know that it is strongly linked to the miserable haze that attacks our land every year. Indonesia has been a lousy neighbour and Kalimantan seems to have problem to stop farmers to clear the land by burning forest. A predict mentions Kalimantan will lose all its rainforest within 3 years. Great! They will have Nothing to burn soon.

Hundreds square miles of land in Sabah is now an ecology desert. Now this tree is invading area such as Pitas and next to new road from Keningau to Tawau. Trying to fool us that our forest conservation is doing great, government declares 12 new forest reserves earlier. Do you know that our forest reserves are surrounded by oil palm? So these forest reserves do not connect to one another and each reserve becomes an isolated island. Wildlife is locked in small patches of fragmented forest so they can’t move to other reserves for food and breeding. Orang-utan, pygmy elephants and rhino cannot migrate anywhere else.

Musa Aman said National Geographic praised Sabah has done a marvelous job in protecting the forest. Bull shit! I have read the article and National Geographic only said Sabah is not as corrupted as Sarawak and Kalimantan, so our conservation is only “slightly” better off than Sarawak. Just read the National Geographic article below:

Click Here to read the full article “Borneo’s Moment of Truth” by National Geographic and judge it yourselves.

Some extracts from the article..

But if you want to see the real Borneo, the Borneo of the first decade of the 21st century, it would be good to be the crested serpent-eagle perched in a tree across the river. Then you could soar high above the Kinabatangan [of Sabah] and see how quickly the unruly forest gives way to neatly planted rows of oil palm trees, stretching for mile after mile in all directions. The palm plantation is lush and green, and the arching fronds of the trees give it an exotic beauty, and for the incomparable biodiversity of Borneo it is inexorable death.

“Virgin rain forest is a dead concept now in Borneo,” says Glen Reynolds, chief scientist at the Danum Valley Field Center in Sabah. “All of the big areas of primary lowland forest that can be conserved already have been.

The natural world fares better in Sabah, the Malaysian state in northeastern Borneo. Though oil palm plantations have burgeoned here, more than half of Sabah remains forested. Much of the forest has been heavily logged, and more and more acres converted to commercial tree plantations, but Sabah sustains some of the best surviving examples of high-quality rain forest: the Danum Valley and Maliau Basin Conservation Areas…

…It retains some of the best rain forest on Borneo, but, since it occupies less than one percent of the island, it makes a negligible contribution to the overall conservation picture.

“… So you can log forests and still save that biodiversity. But the thing you can’t do is convert the whole thing to monoculture plantations,” such as oil palm. “Then of course you lose everything. It’s a biological desert.”

WWF geographer Raymond Alfred shows me around Sabah’s state-owned Ulu Segama Forest Reserve, where the forest has been thoroughly—and legally—logged, leaving woodland that seems downright puny compared with the skyscraping rain forest at nearby Danum Valley.

From the coal power plant, expensive Mt Kinabalu climbing fee and oil palm cases, by now we should aware that foreigner organisations do not love our land, so we should learn to love our land and protect it ourselves, instead of counting on government who loves those big companies and disregard the warning from citizens and NGOs such as WWF.

Undoubtedly, oil palm plays an important part in our economy. Oil palm itself is not a “sinful” crop. However, it is only the way oil palm companies plant it cause a lot of environmental problems. Hopefully, they will strictly follow the Roundtable Sustainable Oil Palm (RSOP) guidelines to strive for a balance between profit and environment. The western media like to point fingers at the negative impact of oil palm in our country. But they should realise that their countries want cheap palm oil instead of costlier palm oil produced under RSOP. So please stop to be hypocrite.

Everyone knows the recent storm “Morakot” flooded half of Taiwan, and landslide killed many people and some area was buried under 4 and 5 floors of soil and rocks! The Taiwan government acknowledges that the disaster was caused by over-development of hill area. Our government attitude is very different though. When over-logging caused flood in Tenom and weak hill structure made whole housing collapsed, they just attributed these as “Act of God”. And as usual, no government officer need to be held liability. When the slope is clear, the rain will wash the soil into the river causing a shallow and narrow river. One day, if the rain is pouring and the developed hill can’t hold the water as effective as hill forest, big flood will happen.

According to State Forest Enactment, any development and farming is prohibited on the slope steeper than 25 degrees I think? However, I saw many many steep slopes are clear for planting of oil palm. Isn’t it illegal? Hill development was asked to be stopped many times. But who are still approving such projects? One day when tragedy like Morakot happens (touch wood!), you will not surprise to hear government says that such man-made disaster is Act of God again. Good luck!

Clearing of forest for oil palm plantation is a win-win situation. Timber companies got their wood, oil palm companies can use this clear land to plant cash crop, and you all know, some politicians and government officers will win fat cash under table. The losing side is the rakyat (citizens), who will get flood and pollution. 90% of workers in plantation are cheap labour from foreigner countries, so this industry does not create many job opportunities for locals like government claims. FYI, the oil palm companies love our rainforest soil, coz it almost doubles the yield of oil palm.

After 308, anyone who still believe Barisan Nasional government is an idiot. Remember Musa Aman asked the plantations, which encroached the river side of Kinabatangan, removed their trees or “faced the music”? He said it twice on the newspapers in 2004 and 2007. But anything happened? No. He was really singing only. The encroaching oil palm are still there. Furthermore, the oil palm mills still dump tons of toxic chemicals into the Kinabatangan River. Many fishes die and the water is getting dirtier to drink, affecting thousands of locals who rely on the river.

Zoom in the photo above and you will see one of the ocean of oil palm, scary… Sabah is becoming the Land below Oil Palm. This is a common scene in Lahad Datu.

Above is a forest reserve being surrounded by oil palm. Isn’t this so-called forest reserve look more like an island?

Before the land was clear for oil palm plantation, there are beautiful forest with tall trees like photo above. These trees survive because these trees are in forest reserve, but is nothing if compared to the size of oil palm land next to it.

Looking at the photo above, may be you wonder why this tall tree in the oil palm land was not cut down. Usually the oil palm planters will purposely keep a few tall trees in the farm, but not for conservation. This tree is for bird predators such as eagle and owl to rest on, so they can help the planters to control the pest such as rats. What an exploit.. However, this tree does remind us that this land was once covered by many big trees like this. Malaysia Palm Oil Council (MPOC) claimed that no new forest areas had been allocated for planting oil palm since 1990. The photos here prove that they are liar.

Photos taken in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Double Six Crash

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6th June 2009, I was standing in Double Six Monument, the exact spot where a Nomad aircraft crashed 33 years ago. On 6th June 1976, this plane was on the way from Labuan to KK International Airport. For uncertain reason, the plane plunged into coastline of Sembulan and killed all 11 passengers onboard.

Those who perished were Chief Minister of Sabah at that time, Tun Fuad Stephens, ministers like Datuk Peter Mojuntin (Local Government and Housing), Datuk Salleh Sulong (Finance), Datuk Chong Thain Vun (Communication and Works), Datuk Darius Binion (Finance Ministry Permanent Secretary), Datuk Wahid Andu, Dr Syed Hussein Wafa, assigned bodyguard Corp. Mohd Said, Ishak Atan (Tengku Razaleigh’s personal secretary), pilot Captain Ghani Nathan and Fuad’s eldest son, Johari.

Memorial service is carried out in this monument annually on 6-6. Though I was not a grow-up in 1976, that can’t stop me from wandering why this happened. Besides the list of victims and date of crash, there is so little background information behind this tragedy.

However, the elder generation, who had experienced the shock of losing their beloved leaders, still cannot forget the pain until today. Half of the cabinet died.

None of them believe that the crash was an accident. During that time (you can call it a coincidence) there was disagreement and tension between Sabah and the federal governments about the oil royalty and Sabah’s rights. Tun Fuad Stephens wanted to fight for 25% of the oil royalty, a huge difference with the 5% we get today.

What convinced Sabahans more that it was a political murder is – a politician, who was supposed to take the same flight, didn’t go onboard. After he gained power later, the government was so generous to accept the rip-off 5% oil royalty deal.

Anyway, that is just guessing without any proof. I just describe what they thought at that time. Whether it was an accident or conspiracy, this will remain the biggest mystery in Sabah history. The memory is fading out. Only a few politicians and victim’s families come for yearly remembrance now.

Well, I was just there to remember these past elites who were so bold, in contrast to our boneless-chicken YBs who have become the gut-less Yes-Men to anything that against Sabahan interests. It is not difficult to understand why some federal ministers have become so arrogant and indifferent when dealing with us. Just see some cases like the prohibited use of word “Allah”, cabotage policy, hospital and coal plant.

According to newspaper (Nov 2009), “The Golden Son of the Kadazans”, a biography on former State Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Peter J. Mojuntin who died in the “Double 6” tragedy of June 1996, is among books still banned today. …According to the Home Ministry, the book written by Bernard Sta Maria, was banned on June 22, 1978 because it contained elements that could threaten peace and order…

You can watch this video for more in-depth documentary

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Worst Vehicle in Sabah

Sabah VIPs in Poverty

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(This actually an old post, but I add more new photos at bottom. The last photo will blow you away, haha…) They don’t give boring speech, and thousands of people from overseas want to meet them. They are the key contributors of our billion-dollar eco-tourism business but they would leave us forever… But those, who threaten their lives, live in big houses, drive luxury cars, and pollute the earth…

Yes, the VIPs that I talk about are our eco-tourism Superstars, i.e. Orang-Utan, Proboscis Monkey, Pygmy Elephants, and Sumtran Rhino (四大天王). With wildlife and nature as selling points, our eco-tourism promotion is so successful that even the fellows from Peninsular Malaysia think we live on tree. Our hotel occupation rate climbs to 95%. Our future seems bright.

They are our rice bowl, but many of them die of hunger or losing their homes. They are only 1 or 2 steps away from extinction. Just look at the table below and see what is really happening. Their combined population is even less than the population of Ranau town. If we don’t do anything, I doubt if the tourists can see them again in the wild years later.

Sources: IUCN Red List, CITES Appendix, WWF. For more intepretation detail on the conservation status, please refer to IUCN

Deforestation and oil palm plantation have long been recognised as one of the major threats. Research has shown that the conversion of forests into oil palm plantations leads to the complete loss of 80-90% of mammals, reptiles and birds.

In Support of “Malaysia Wildlife Conservation Awareness 08”:

Please blog about wildlife conservation to support this campaign.

Development is important but it should be carried out in a more sustainable manner, which lessen the impact to the environment. Frankly, I can’t tell you if I could see those superstars again after 10 years, but most of us would live long enough to see them disappear from the earth forever. Anyone knows the status of the oil palm encroahment at Kinabatangan? Please share with me the most recent photo if you have any.

Mt. Kinabalu = 4,101M?

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On 19 Aug 1997, everyone has learnt from the local and national newspapers that the official height of Mount Kinabalu is 4,095.2m (13,432.26 ft), not 4,101m (13,455 ft). After 10 years, someone still hasn’t updated the information. Just grab a copy of “Going Places”, a free inflight magazine for all passengers of MAS Airline. Flip to the page that has the Malaysia map and look at Sabah state.

The Sabah map below is from the Sep 2007 issue of Going Places. As you can see, the height of Mount Kinabalu is still posted as 4,101 M. I think million copies of such mistake had been printed for 10 years. Time to remind MAS to change it.

This error was even more obvious in older issue (see below) of Going Places coz the map of Borneo was taking a full A4 page.

Nevermind lah, people make mistake sometimes. I also thought that Mt. Kinabalu is the highest mountain in Southeast Asia. After doing a search on the net, I found that the Mt. Hkakabo Razi, with a height of 5,881 Metres (19,295 ft), in Myanmar (Burma) is the highest in Southeast Asia. Mt. Carstensz (Puncak Jaya), with a height of 4,884 Metres (16,024 ft), in Indonesia, is the second highest. So Mt. Kinabalu is the 3rd highest in Southeast Asia (but still the highest in Malaysia and Borneo). I also need to update my web site then…

Photos taken in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp – Part 5 of 8

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Black-Hearted Oil Palm, Half-Hearted Government

You would have heard stories about the wealth of oil palm farmers. They drive the most expensive cars in town and live in luxury houses. One of them even slammed thousand dollar cash in front of a car salesman coz he thought the salesman looked down on him. This sort of story “inspired” lot of people. For years, I have been hearing many people excitedly talked about the bright future of owning an oil palm plantation, wishing that they could also throw cash at people’s face.

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

Whatever, it is absolutely nothing wrong to be rich, provided that we earn our money in legal way and don’t harm the others. However, the view of oil palm planted right to the edge of the Kinabatangan River is really a disturbing view to nature lovers. By law, 20 Metres of the land next to the high-water mark of bigger river is a reserved area (riparian reserve) of government, and does not belong to the planters. In short, it is a violation of law to use this reserve area for own purpose such as plantation.

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

The 20-metre-wide riparian reserve will serve as (1) a buffer zone for flood, and (2) migration passenge for wildlife such as Borneo Pygmy elephants. To move to other area with more food supply, Borneo Pygmy elephants have a habit of seasonal migration along the river. The encroachment of palm oil plantation into riparian reserve cut off the migration route of Borneo Pygmy elephant and other animals. It is same as building a farm on the highway, blocking all the cars on the road. As a result, they have to venture into private lands, including villages, thereby causing conflict between them and human.

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

In the river cruise for 2 days, we were so impressed to see almost no garbage floating on the river. The local community has done a great job to keep the river clean. The Kinabatangan River is also their source of drinking water and fish catch. Since the blooming of oil palm, the ca$h crop, the oil palm mills and plantation have polluted the river with 50,000 to 80,000 tons of harmful chemical and fertiliser every year. If you ask the local fishermen, you would know that there are less fishes nowadays and the contaminated water makes them ill.

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

Did our government do anything? Yes, they did… well, to be precise, they did “say” something but didn’t “do” anything. Below was what the government said in Daily Express newspaper of May 8, 2006 (more than a year ago):
“Oil palm companies in the Kinabatangan have been urged to ensure their plantation boundaries do not encroach riparian areas (along riverbanks) to avoid the risk of being penalised by the Government. On April 4, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman called on oil palm plantation owners encroaching into State land reserves, especially riparian areas, to vacate the areas immediately or face the music… blah, blah, blah…”

Does this sound familiar? Oh ya, they also said the SAME thing in newspaper recently. Some politicians only made some big hooha like last year, then nothing would happen. It is already more than 1 year, but the oil palm plantation encroachment is still there. What is the authority waiting for? Just cut down those encroaching oil palm and lock those owners in jail!

If the environmentalists and press didn’t report the encroachment last month, I have doubt if the authority would do anything, even after 5 years, 10 years, 20 years… The commitment of government on conservation efforts is simply disappointing and a BIG failure (though I really appreciate they remove shark fin from the menu of official dinner). I’m afraid many other issues such as fish bombing, illegal logging… will never end until there is no fish, no forest left..

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

In fact, 20 metres is not wide enough, so WWF proposes a 150-metre “Corridor of Life” to connect all the small forest patches, which are separated by the oil palm plantation. The vegetation on this corridor needs to be dense enough so the wildlife feels safe to use it. This also allows the elephants to look for girlfriend and boyfriend at other sides, rather than breeding with their family, which will weaken their genes. Otherwise, one day our tourists would see elephants with 6 legs, orang utan with long nose, etc…

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

The Corridor of Life is a win-win solution to both planters and wildlife. The wildlife can have larger habitat and move freely to get more food, and the planters still can continue their profitable busine$$, without intruding the reserve. I don’t hope too much. A 50-metre corridor is really a good start already. The animals only need a small part of the land mostly situated near the riverbanks, which is not suitable for plantation too due to flood.

But the response from the oil palm plantation owners is like giving a big middle finger to everyone. I saw some clothing like the picture below put along the river. This is to scare away the elephants. I even heard shocking statement like, “It is cheaper to shoot the orang utan than relocating them.”

Click Here to see more photos of Lower Kinabatangan >>

Next year I will go back to Kinabatangan again to check the progress and take some photos. If nothing is done, probably I can send the photos to the foreigner press, together with a name list of those plantation that encroaches the reserve.

Photos taken in Lower Kinabatangan, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

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Travel guides to Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Tag Archives: Government

First Malaysia Day Celebration

Tawau, the ecology desert

The Land below the Oil Palm

Double Six Crash

Worst Vehicle in Sabah

Sabah VIPs in Poverty

Mt. Kinabalu = 4,101M?

Uncle Tan’s Wildlife Camp – Part 5 of 8