HULU KELANG – A widely circulated message stating that officers from the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) and Gombak Land and District Office are at Bukit Tabur for enforcement action has turned out to be inaccurate.
The operation was supposedly to investigate alleged unauthorised clearing activities on agricultural land here.
It is learnt that MPAJ did not issue the message, although officers from the Forestry Department turned up here this morning.
Recent images of forest clearing at Bukit Tabur, home to the world’s longest geological quartz formation, have riled environmentalists, hikers and nearby residents.
Following the furore, Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari on Saturday said the state government had nothing to do with the activity, and that the clearing works were not approved by local authorities.
“An enforcement team has gone to the site to stop the activity and seize machinery.”
The matter has also left the public wondering if it is related to the geopark construction tabled in the Selangor assembly last year.
Yesterday, Bukit Tabur proprietors came together to clarify their side of the story after widespread attention over unknown clearing works by one of the landowners.
Speaking on behalf of the landowners of Bukit Tabur East, Azhar Ahmat said: “I must clearly state that the matter we are discussing today is not an encroachment issue because the land(s) within the area are privately owned by individuals.
“The real issue today is that activities that were done up at the site may have been carried out without proper, documented approvals.
“This is the job of the authorities. They should find out what is actually going on, and hopefully inform us of what can and cannot be done so misunderstandings can be avoided in the future.”
Nurul Hikmah Abd Khalid, a property lawyer and one of the landowners, said it is a good thing people are discussing the matter “because Kemensah and also Bukit Tabur are heritage sites that are more than 200 million years old”.
“If the government truly views it as a valuable heritage and wants to preserve it, it must be done the right way. As a landowner myself, of course we want to develop it and do not want it to be left idle.”
She added that there are no set procedures for landowners to conduct agricultural activity near the Klang Gates Quartz Ridge. – The Vibes, September 13, 2021
