MIRI – The state government must drastically slow down development activities in Sarawak’s forests, especially logging, oil-palm plantation and mining projects, as these are causing massive floods of up to six times a year now.
Miri MP Dr Michael Teo Yu Keng told The Vibes that the ecosystem in interior northern Sarawak cannot take any further large-scale degradation, seeing that over the past week, serious floods have hit Marudi, Baram, Beluru, Tinjar, Mulu and other regions in northern Sarawak.
“How much longer can the state government ignore these telltale signs that our ecosystem cannot handle the stress anymore?
“The forest covers in Sarawak are getting more and more barren at alarming rates due to logging, followed by oil palm mega-estates and mining for stones and sand.
“The floods happening so often in northern Sarawak nowadays, as many as six or seven times a year, are clear signs of the ecosystem undergoing too much stress.
“The forests, rivers and land are being degraded so much they cannot absorb rainfall anymore. The state government cannot ignore these danger signs any longer,” Teo said.
The state PKR vice-chairman said that Kuching must halt or at the bare minimum drastically reduce timber harvesting, land clearing for new oil palm plantations, and sand and stone extraction from rivers and hills.
He warned that if the situation remains unchanged, he would not be surprised if parts of Sarawak remain inundated all year round.
The latest floods in northern Sarawak have been happening since late December.
Recently, a local environmentalist has laid part of the blame over the state’s worsening floods on large-scale sand mining along riverbanks, river basins and river deltas in Sarawak’s northern interiors.
Speaking to The Vibes, Peter Kallang observed that these mining activities in ecologically sensitive areas by the rivers are becoming increasingly rampant in the region.
In fact, Kallang’s own settlement in Long Ekang has also been inundated by up to 1m of rising waters.
“The floods are already severe due to the large-scale clearing of forests for logging and plantation. The situation has worsened over the years due to sand-mining operations taking place along the river systems.
“Extracting sand is causing the riverbanks to lose their natural top layer of earth cover.
“Dredging huge amounts of sand is also causing siltation and erosion. The silt that ends up in the riverbed makes the river shallow.
“The rivers cannot handle huge amounts of rainfall anymore. All these activities are making the floods in Baram from bad to worse,” he lamented.
The flooding situation in his longhouse was so terrible that residents there were forced to hang their motorcycles on trees or on high poles attached to their homes.
Meanwhile, the state Welfare Department has also been hard at work sending food supplies to the 11 badly affected areas.
On January 31, Sarawak Public Communications Unit said that the population centres include Rumah Saba, Rumah Anthony, Rumah David and the schools where pupils are boarding in hostels.
“The food supplies are sourced from Miri. They are sent into the flooded zones using land routes and also rivers,” the unit said. – The Vibes, February 5, 2022
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