MCA slams Kedah for cleaning out forest reserve
MCA has slammed the Kedah PAS government for failing to uphold Pakatan Rakyat’s pledge to protect the environment, following media reports of extensive logging in a forest reserve and water catchment area.
MCA has slammed the Kedah PAS government for failing to uphold Pakatan Rakyat’s pledge to protect the environment, following media reports of extensive logging in a forest reserve and water catchment area.
“While the Kedah government may brag about how they have increased the state’s revenue through logging, this should not be done at the expense of the environment, especially a precious natural resource such as water in these days of global warming,” said MCA Gurun rep Leong Yong Kong.
“Reneging the Pakatan Common Policy Framework’s pledge that the ‘environment must be preserved for the sustainability of the future generation’ and to ‘restrict development at hill slopes’, PAS has shown a blatant disregard towards the environment by contaminating the state’s water resource as well as endangering the people’s lives as logging has weakened the land foundation thus increasing the possibility of landslides,” he said in a statement today.
He was responding to front page reports in mainstream dailies today of 13,325 ha of forest reserve allegedly cleared 500m from the Pedu Dam in Kuala Nerang.
In the reports, state Umno liason committee deputy chairperson Mukhriz Mahathir and several members surveyed the area by helicopter yesterday, and said that the area was “under seige”.
Mukhriz said the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry had ordered a stop to felling activities in the area, and called for the state government to explain why it had not complied.
Leong alleged that PAS-led state governments had failed to protect the environment.
“It seems to be a trend for PAS state governments to neglect the environment as can be seen in both Kedah and Kelantan.
“If a clearly marked forest reserve can be plainly ignored by PAS, I shudder to think of the bigger damage which they might do should they take over the federal government.
“Thus while PAS can go around bragging about how they will clean corruption of the country, the voters should take note of the ‘cleaning’ of trees conducted in PAS own backyards and use it as a yardstick to determine their suitability of holding the government.”
