GEORGE TOWN, JULY 8- Penang will support Kedah’s effort to get federal funds to protect the Sungai Muda basin and the Ulu Muda forests as sources of water for drinking as well as agricultural and industrial use.
Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said in a blog article that federal funding was justifiable because the Ulu Muda forests were:-
-A critical raw water catchment area for three states
-An indispensable irrigation resource for Kedah as Malaysia’s rice bowl, and
-Green and biologically diverse areas that should be gazetted as a national or state forest park.
Lim said he expected the Perlis government to also support Kedah’s application for federal funding.
He urged the federal government to approve the funds, noting that it had declared, under the 10th Malaysia Plan, to “undertake initiatives to encourage states to gazette forests, especially the water catchment areas, as protected areas.”
He suggested that Kedah gazette the forest reserves as water catchment forests under the National Forestry Act 1984.
Lim is convinced that Putrajaya has the financial resources to pay Kedah, especially with its takeover of water assets through Perbadanan Aset Air Bhd (PAAB).
He called for enhanced protection of the Ulu Muda forests through the establishment of state or national parks.
According to the environmental group Friends of Ulu Muda (FOUM), the catchment areas there, covering some 160,000 hectares, have been under threat since 2002 from logging activities, forest conversions, illegal and unregulated extraction of forest resources and unsustainable tourism development.
FOUM has called on for an end to logging activities in the Ulu Muda forests, citing a Putrajaya directive in May 2003 to ban them.
Ulu Muda supplies 96% of Kedah’s water needs and 80% of Penang’s.
The Muda irrigation scheme, which is responsible for 40% of Malaysia’s rice production, relies heavily on water from the forests.
“The federal government should keep its promise to compensate Kedah for not logging the Ulu Muda forests,” Lim said.
