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PERAK Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir recently told a radio programme that 17,400ha of state land have been cleared illegally.

He said illegal land clearing had cost the state government millions in revenue. Although the problem is statewide, the activities are particularly prevalent in Batang Padang, Manjung and Perak Tengah districts.

The figure was based on initial findings by the state government. However, some believe that is not an actual picture of the situation, but merely the tip of the iceberg. A thorough investigation may reveal even more startling results.

Any discussion about illegal land clearing will always refer back to the massive mud flood in Sungai Bertam, Cameron Highlands, that killed three people.

It is without a doubt that illegal land-clearing activities and uncontrolled farming had led to the tragedy on Oct 23 last year. Sadly, three months after the incident, the farmers on the highlands were back to their old tricks.

Unlike Cameron Highlands, the culprits involved in illegal land clearing in Perak are believed to be members of syndicates.

The question which begs to be answered is whether any of the syndicates have been identified, let alone their masterminds nabbed?

How much longer will they be allowed to do as they wish before the law catches up with them?

A recent operation, dubbed Op Sahom, reportedly turned tense when authorities tried to clear an illegally cultivated land in Kampar.

There was a stand-off between the illegal farmers and the authorities, which led to the operation being called off following political intervention.

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We need to stop illegal land clearing

The city of Conroe and Houston-based Wilbow Corporation have agreed to swap land parcels, enabling the city to add amenities to Carl Barton Jr. Park off Loop 336.

The agreement originally was crafted in 2008.

In 2009, the developer worked with the city to put this on hold when the economy went through a downturn, said Mike Riggens, director of the Conroe Parks and Recreation Department.

Riggens said officials with Wilbow recently approached the city about moving forward with the agreement that will allow Conroe to add an Amenity Center to the park.

The city received four acres and $176,000 in cash in exchange for two small parcels of land totaling about 9.5 acres south of the park. The City Council approved the agreement Thursday.

Phase one of the project includes clearing the site and adding a pavilion, playground and pathways. Total cost of the first phase is $520,700.

Phase two of the project will include a walking trail, basketball court, sand volleyball court and picnic pads at a cost of $159,107.

The new amenities will be adjacent to phase two of Barton Woods and will be accessible to residents via walking paths. The project is expected to take about 18 months to complete, according to the agreement.

City Administrator Paul Virgadamo said the location will benefit the parks existing soccer fields.

There are no playgrounds near the soccer fields, he said. This puts amenities closer to the soccer fields.

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Land swap allows city to build amenity center at park

by Rintos Mail, reporters@theborneopost.com. Posted on March 30, 2014, Sunday

When an El Nino event is predicted, environment controllers and policy-makers in the region should impose a total ban on large-scale land clearing or open burning, not just in Malaysia (or Sarawak) but also in the other countries of Southeast Asia.

RECORD-BREAKING heat, brought on by El Nino, could wreak havoc on weather patterns this year.

Based on an early warning report, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), there is a 75 per cent chance of such an event occurring in 2014.

The strongest effects on precipitation are in Southeast Asia and the western Pacific Ocean, especially in the dry season (August to November).

The highest global temperatures were reportedly recorded during the last strong El Nino in 1998.

Given the continued increases in baseline temperature around the world, an El Nino event this year could lead to record-breaking heat.

According to the PNAS report, this could send temperatures soaring worldwide, causing droughts in Australia and Southeast Asia, heavy rain and flooding in parts of the US and South America.

This time around if it happens Sarawak and Malaysia, as a whole, will not be spared.

A senior officer from the Malaysia Meteorological Department in Kuala Lumpur Wong Teck Kiong said Malaysia would definitely be affected if El Nino struck again.

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El Nino havoc possible this year

update on the land clearing down the road from my house.
update on the land clearing down the road from my house.

By: MIKE MAYERAN

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update on the land clearing down the road from my house. - Video

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Many of Southeast Asias cities are being blanketed in an acrid, smoggy mix of smoke and ash from forest fires, industrial emissions, and vehicular exhaust. Land-clearing agricultural fires in Indonesia, mostly in the province of North Sumatra, are producing much of the smoke and causing many to point the finger at the Indonesian government and the countrys pulp, paper, lumber and palm oil corporations. NASA satellite imaging has recorded some 3,000 fires in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia so far this year, though Burma, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines are not entirely blameless.

Though last years Hazepocalypse embarrassed Indonesia and prompted promises of action against further fires by its government, it seems little has been done so far. Drought conditions are not helping.

Smoke and haze over Sumatra on March 12. Pic: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

From the Guardian:

From Palangkarya in Borneo to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, the air has been thick, the sun a dull glow and face masks obligatory. Schools, airports and roads have been closed and visibility at times has been down to just a few yards. Communities have had to be evacuated and people advised to remain indoors, transport has been disrupted and more than 50,000 people have had to be treated for asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses in Sumatra alone. Last week more than 200 Malaysian schools were forced to close, and pollution twice reached officially hazardous levels.

Around half the fires are burning on industrial logging land and palm oil plantations. By not controlling the fires on their land (whether theyve started them or not), these mega-corporations are not only poisoning Southeast Asia, theyre also shooting themselves in the foot. The president of Indonesias Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), which is Asias second-largest pulp and paper firm,recently announced that the company is itself a victim of the fires, which have cost it $5-6 million US.

Indonesias environment minister recently announced that legal action is being taken against 45 companies involved in slash-and-burn land clearing and deforestation in the country.

Airpollution, and were talking about both indoors and outdoors, is now the biggest environmental health problem, and its affecting everyone, both developed and developing countries.

The risks fromairpollutionare now far greater than previously thought or understood, particularly for heart disease and strokes. Few risks have a greater impact on global health today thanairpollution. The evidence signals the need for concerted action to clean up theairwe all breathe.

Maria Neira, WHO public and environmental health chief (via AFP)

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Brown cloud of death: Indonesias industry is killing SE Asia

Papua is Indonesias poorest region

Indigenous peoples rely on their land for their survival and therefore any incursion onto their land creates serious problems for any community, Sophie Grig, a senior campaigner for Survival International, a UK-based indigenous rights advocacy organization, told IRIN. These incursions in West Papua generally also involve the presence of the military to protect the project [which] leads to human rights violations.

Over the past four years, at least 74 people have died in the village of Baad alone - one of more than 160 across Merauke- due to infighting between communities created by disagreements over the sale of land to agribusinesses, and police brutality, according to Leonardus Maklew, a Baad resident who has been representing nine Malind villages in negotiations to defend their land from an Indonesian sugar cane plantation since 2010.

The most serious consequences have been human deaths. Up until now, the police, companies, and military never tried to understand our needs and our struggle, said the 35-year-old ethnic Malind man.

Police and military personnel routinely accompany companies when they come to ask the Malind to sell their land. It is a form of intimidation, said Sophie Chao, a project officer with the Forest People's Programme (FPP), a non-profit organization registered in the Netherlands that campaigns for the rights of indigenous peoples of the tropical forest facing environmental destruction and human rights violations.

Since 2009, when the local government initiated planning for the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), a mega development project aiming to convert more than a million hectares of forest to agribusinesses in Papua, at least 12 corporations have moved into areas inhabited by an estimated 116,500 indigenous peoples generally known as the Malind, who are struggling to survive in increasingly degraded, deforested environments. Tribal leaders co-opted?

While police and military brutality against indigenous Papuans is nothing new in this resource-rich, former Dutch colony, violence between communities on this scale is unprecedented, residents say.

The government says we are just a hot-headed people, always fighting, but it is worse now. Tools that used to be used for hunting are now used against one another, said Maklew, explaining that bows and arrows, and knives, are all commonly drawn during fights, which have occurred at least once a month since corporations started (in 2009) trying to convince villagers individually to sell their land, bypassing customary collective decision-making processes.

Company spokespeople of PT Anugerah Rejeki Nusantara (ARN), a sugar cane plantation owned by the Wilmar International Group (WIG) headquartered in Singapore, often co-opt tribal leaders, paying them a salary to convince the other villagers to sell their land, according to the FPP, and without giving full information to communities that they will not see their land again, according to Rainforest Foundation Norway, an NGO that campaigns for the protection of rainforests and their inhabitants. WIG strongly denies the charge.

Wilmar pledges to respect and recognize the long-term customary and individual rights of indigenous and local communities,stated WIG in a public statement on 5 December 2013.

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Conflict in Indonesias Papua Region

One of the biggest pieces of legislation under consideration in City Council right now a land bank bill has turned into a debate over competing ideas for amendments, some of which significantly alter Council's authority over the land bank.

City Councilor Deb Gross, who introduced the legislation Jan. 14, and has acknowledged her original bill needed improvement, has released some ideas for amendments along with City Councilor Corey O'Connor (though not the exact language) on the city's website.

Gross' original proposal would create a quasi-government authority that would be responsible for centralizing the city's blighted/vacant/tax delinquent land and work with homeowners, community groups and developers to turn those properties around. The land bank, authorized under state law, can exercise a 'trump bid' at treasurer's sale (meaning the land bank can acquire property without being the highest bidder) and can expedite the title-clearing process (meaning it can resolve potential ownership conflicts more quickly).

Not surprisingly, the bill has generated lots of debate: Who should serve on the land bank's board of directors? Should City Council have a vote on the final use of individual properties? How should community groups or individual neighbors be included in the process?

And those are some of the issues that prompted city councilors Daniel Lavelle and Ricky Burgess to release their own set of amendments earlier this month that, among other things, would expand the board of directors to include "community-based organizations" and would require unanimous council approval anytime the land bank wants to turn over a property it has acquired.

Gross and O'Connor have responded with their own ideas for amendments that would also expand the board to include community members, but would not give council authority over the disposition of its land.

City Paper invited city councilors Gross, O'Connor, Burgess and Lavelle for a roundtable discussion last Friday to chat about these issues and that will appear on our website and on newsstands tomorrow.

For now, though, here are some of the highlights of Gross/O'Connor's ideas for amendments (after the jump).

*Community members can force the land bank to hold public hearings on disposition of land. If 15 "nearby residents" petition the land bank within 30 days of the notice of sale, the land bank would be required to hold a "pre-disposition Public Hearing in the neighborhood."

*The land bank board must vote on the disposition of all property from the land bank. The original bill gave the land bank's staff authority to made decisions on property worth less than $50,000, a provision that angered Burgess who argued there are plenty of properties in his district below this threshold and staffers shouldn't be allowed to decide what happens to them.

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Land Banking: It's a battle of amendments