|
www.nst.com When we disregard Mother Nature, we pay the price of its fury. Putri Zanina is thankful that large parts of our country’s forests and seas are under protection
What a wet welcome it was for Visit Malaysia Year 2007! Floods ravaged six States and many towns and villages were submerged in muddy water.
Even as I sat writing this, over 80,000 people in flood-affected areas in Johor, Malacca, Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Kelantan and Terengganu were displaced from their homes in one of the worst floods ever to wreak havoc on the country.
For them, “One Golden Celebration” and “Cuti-Cuti Malaysia” are the farthest things from their mind. Ask them and they will agree that hell hath no fury like Mother Nature scorned. In the face of such forces beyond our control, we can only quake and shiver in fear.
Things are made worse because of our tampering with the environment — the price of urbanisation and global warming, if you like. Natural waterways, reservoir areas and wetlands are destroyed and jungles ravaged. It is perhaps fitting to pay tribute to what many have taken for granted — the country’s amazing biodiversity.
Do you know that Malaysia is recognised as one of a dozen countries in the world with mega biodiversity? Many species of plants and animals have thrived here for some 130 million years.
We have one sixth of the world’s total animals species or some 180,000 species. Of these, more than three quarters are invertebrates, with insects forming the largest single group. The rest are made up of butterflies, moths, birds, mammals and fishes.
Roaming deep in our jungles are tigers, elephants and rhinoceros. Other interesting animals that evoke much interest are orang utan, proboscis monkey, tapir, deer, mouse-deer, leopard, civet cat and pangolin.
Our tropical forests are also bursting with over 15,000 species of colourful flowering plants or nine per cent of the world’s total. Here, you can find unique plants like the world’s largest flower, the Rafflesia, and the world’s smallest orchid variety, the Podochilus. Then there are carnivorous pitcher plants of many shapes and hues.
Definitely worth mentioning is the Tualang, the world’s tallest rainforest tree that can soar up to 80 metres. These are like guardian angels of our forests, touted to be among the oldest and most ancient on Earth, much older than the equatorial forests of the Amazon or the Congo.
Our forests have remained relatively intact even during the natural movements of the ice caps. That’s why the numerous plants and animals have thrived for thousands of years. The forests have also been the home of nomadic indigenous people and history tells of ancient civilisations that had both flourished and perished in the richness of our land.
About half our country is still covered by forests. Dotting our coastlines are mangroves, peat swamps and mud swamps that act as buffer against the onslaught of eroding waves.
Several other types of forests also dot our land, like lowland dipterocarp, sub-tropical montane forest and mossy forests.
The mossy forest of Gunung Brinchang in Cameron Highlands is an outstanding place for you to see and feel how ancient the forest there is. Green mossy carpets and curtains in cool, misty setting give a fairylike feel. There are coral gardens with lichen and liverwort, a funny looking fluffy moss that had evolved from its beginnings as an aquatic plant. Scientists suggest that this place was under water ages ago.
Thankfully, some of our natural heritage are under the protection of the National Parks and Wildlife Reserves. About one third of our land is under protection.
In the Peninsula, we have Taman Negara and Taman Rimba Kenong in Pahang, Endau Rompin National Park spanning both Pahang and Johor and Royal Belum in Perak.
In Sarawak are Bako, Gunung Mulu, Gunung Gading, Niah and Batang Ai and in Sabah, the Maliau Basin and Southeast Asia’s highest mountain, Mount Kinabalu, surrounded by a protected mountain garden.
Trekking in the forests is an adventure with wildlife, treacherous terrain and swirling rapids. Your rewards? It can be the sight of rare flowers or birds, or rivers so clear you can see the particles of sand underneath the surface. You can the feel the gushing waterfalls rub your aching back and view glittering stars in the sky when you set up camp for the night.
Offshore, we have marine parks. Scientific studies have revealed that the Indo-Malayan Triangle has an astounding number of coral species, much more than those identified for the entire Caribbean. Our region has more than 600 of the world’s 800 reef-building coral species We have national marine parks at nearly 50 islands, including Pulau Redang, Pulau Tioman, Pulau Payar, Pulau Labuan and Pulau Tiga.
Our forests and seas harbour more treasures than we can ever imagine. Pay scant regard to nature and we will pay the price. Clearing forests for development, for example, will disturb the ecosystem and destroy the environment.
In recent years, the country has been experiencing erratic weather patterns. We have raging storms and unrelenting rainfall that cause flash floods, not only in flood-prone areas in the countryside, but also in towns and cities. Who would have thought, two years ago, that we would be hit by a tsunami?
Hopefully, Mother Nature will be kind as Malaysians welcome tourists for VMY 2007. No, better still, let us pray that it will always be kind. |
.jpg)
