In a recent interview with theSun journalist, Maria J. Dass, Anthony Sebastian, who is president of the Malaysian Nature Society shared his views about nature, land use change and where things seem to be headed in this country. Greenwaveasia has reproduced this frank and informative exchange from Conversations.

thesun THURSDAY DECEMBER 28 2006

STRIKING A BALANCE WITH NATURE

theSun: You were appointed Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) president in September. How long have you been involved with MNS and what got you started in environmental issues?

I went to University of Science Malaysia in Penang in 1981 and one of my biology lecturers, Dr Joe Charles, was the person who… I got to know him pretty well as a biology student. We used to go to the field, watch birds and he told me; you gotta join the MNS,and I said sure, why not? So I joined in 1983 as a member of the Penang branch, then over time I moved to KL and I joined the KL branch. When I shifted to Kuala Selangor I joined the Selangor branch, and I went back to Sarawak in 1996 and I joined the Kuching branch.

Then in 1999 I took over the chairmanship of the Kuching branch and I was the chair for three years, and as branch chairman I was also a member of MNS council. Then I took over as head of the science and conservation division here, for two and a half years, and now I’m here! (as president). I’ve always believed in NGOs (Non – Governmental Organisations), I’m an ecologist by profession so I have a strong interest in all living things and that’s my history in MNS.

Is there an environmental issue that you are most passionate about?

There are hundreds of things to be passionate about, but of all… to pick one… I would say I love natural places. Little places –preferably as large as possible – of planet earth that are still in their natural form, without any buildings, without any houses and farms and roads – all this stuff. Not just for me, I think everyone has to have an opportunity to go away from our urban environments, go to a place which is untouched. This is the way nature has been for generations.

Inside there, if you are interested in plants you will see plants, if you’re interested in fish you can go to the rivers… the birds. Everything is there as it has always been. So ya, natural, untouched places… and all over the world, not just Malaysia. So you can see different parts of the planet as they always were. Unfortunately, it is a very hard thing to do these days, because man has put his foot everywhere.

What should Malayians be most worried about concerning their environment?

I would say land use. Our land use policies and application are, honestly, not very good. Whatever the historical reasons are, the way we designate areas for conservation, for development, for plantations, for forestry… is so patchwork. We are turning our whole country into a sea of modified landscape with little islands of natural areas.

If you had that much land and you say I’m going to have a protected area system, I’m going to protect that much for national park, this one for state park, this one for wildlife sanctuary, and you identify all these little patches – and then you have oil palm here, and then you have industries here and you have cities here – you get these jigsaws all over the place.

Theoretically speaking, it is better to take one huge area and say I’ll protect this, convert all other areas. Then inside there you have a sufficiently large ecosystem, so that when something happens like a fire, or disease – it never affects the whole thing. Whereas when you have, small parts, say 15ha of park. One fire comes, habis! (it’s finished), it’s gone, Or, if disease that kills monkey’s come in, and it spreads, very soon you would have lost all your monkeys in that space. If you had say, one million sq km and say, a disease infects the monkeys, it will affect the monkeys, it will affect this population, the other population will survive. It will never reach that part. So it’s about how you plan land use. I think that is going to be the biggest impact on the Malaysian environment in the future. The way we reclaim our land, the way we drain our peat swamps, we’re just changing everything.

Can you tell what effects this will have on our future?

Collectively, I can tell you what the kinds of effects are. Which one will happen where, or how big, or how bad, I can’t tell you, but things like water…

Water is going to be a serious issue for us, even though we are right in the middle of the tropics. Access to fresh, drinkable water for every Malaysian citizen is going to be a big challenge.

Second, productivity of the land is going to be affected. I think our crops are not going to be producing as much as we can because nutrients… you know where all the nutrients in our land, the real good stuff is – it’s only within the six to 10 inches of topsoil – everything is in there, and you know where it is in Malaysia – it’s in our river you see all that orange – teh susu – thing. That is all our nutrients that feed our crops, that feed our farms and all – it’s all being washed out to sea, because we clear our lands, we don’t protect our lands, when the rain falls it washes away. We are losing our nutrients, so it will affect the ability to feed ourselves in the future.

Third, climate change – when temperatures rise or drops, sea water rises or drops – I don’t know which one is going to happen, everybody is arguing about which one is going to happen. Whatever it is, we know that something will change and it will have an impact on us.

Maybe everybody will be living up in the Titiwangsa range or maybe you will able to walk across to Sumatra, I don’t know. Whichever one it is, it’s going change us.

Fourth, diseases. As we keep opening up and changing our natural habitats into modified landscapes, diseases – new diseases will come up. In the last… even in your lifetime you have heard of Coxsackie, you’ve heard of a whole new range of stuff. These things have always been there in the natural environment, but because of large areas… the dilution factor, so they don’t have an impact on human population, but when you break everything up, then things start to come out. You get exposed to more and more diseases and it not only affects us, it affects our crops. And when something hits Thailand’s paddy as well we’re not going to be eating rice anymore, I tell you.

I don’t know what we’ll be eating. So these are the kinds of things that will change but how severe, where – it’s impossible to predict.

This proves that planning is important. How are organisation such as MNS or other experts involved in the planning of our states and country? Are you invited to give your feedback and suggestion, and are these incorporated into plans in any way?

No, we’re not.

You expertise is not sought. When, say state structure plans are being drawn up at state level…

Yes, in Malaysia, land is a state matter and when you have large states like Sabah and Sarawak, land planning tends to be in one large block, but in Peninsular Malaysia where you have small states, large states all mixed together, land use planning is a bit harder.

You need to have some sort of a inter-agency, inter-sectoral collaboration or communication. Let’s say, one state says it is going to protect a border area as a national park, on the other side another state says it is going to plant oil palm. So you have a national park and oil palm plantation, whereas if they had discussed the matter and said ok, you protect that much, I protect this much then they have one block of forest. Then you have a larger area, both states benefit and the park benefits. A good example is Endau-Rompin where there is collaboration between Pahang and Johor, and MNS had a key role in that.

We started the expeditions, we helped with the designation of the boundaries, we trained their staff and helped with all the infrastructure in there.

That is just on a specific project, but when it comes to sharing your input in state structure plans for instance, is MNS’ expertise sought?

No, we’re not.

How do we resolve the gap between federal policies and state control of land use?

That is not really something we can contribute to because that is more of a federal-state initiative and in fact, there was a project just completed- multilateral environment agreements, a Danida (Danish International Development Agency) funded project, which was looking at pilot states Pahang and Sarawak, and the Federal-state mechanism – to build a mechanism so that when Malaysia signs the convention on biological diversity, Pahang has a mechanism where it can implement the convention. It’s very easy for Malaysia to sign, but you cannot get the states to do it, because the state is autononous, in that sense, especially when it comes to land issues.

That is a national policy and political issue. I don’t really see a role for NGOs.

I mean if there were environment factors to it and they needed advice or consultation, we’ll be more that glad to…

How committed do you feel the Malaysian government is toward environmental conservation?

I think the Malaysian government is very committed towards environmental conservation, but I don’t think the state governments are.

They are more concerned with development?

Yes. I think you should know this - there are three pillars to sustainability. There’s environment (planet), there’s social (people) and then there’s economy (profit) – the 3Ps. The federal government sees the whole thing. As a country we need to see people, economic and environmental issues in good hands. But they are strapped, because of the federal-state system. State governments are more profit (economic)-driven because the progress of a state is judged on how developed they are, how many big buildings they have, long roads, highways, cars, rich people, GDP (Gross Domestic Product), all that. Those are the parameters by which people judge… Selangor is very developed state, whereas Perlis is very undeveloped state but that is only one of the pillars. They should take into account all three.

One is the environment, how good is your environment, how good is Selangor’s protection of the environment compared to its profits – it’s economics.

And then the third one is people, our indigenous people, for example, people who are dependent on the forest and natural land. What about people who live in cities, do you have access to fresh water? If you have to line up outside your flat when… in 1997 when I lived in Vista Angkasa, I had to stand there with a can, and I was saying I’m in the tropics, what am I doing here lining up for three hours with a can, and my toilet’s not flushed and all that. You can imagine someone in an Ethiopian desert lining up for water…

So, do you take into account thee factors when you say how developed a state is? It should. Quality of life. The term the conservation world uses is “human well-being”.

What are the top three priorities for MNS in the near future?

The first would be to fulfil our role as a national environment NGO, it’s a very big role to play in the development of Malaysia.

I don’t think we have achieved that yet. There’s a lot more work to do. I think we have done a good job so far, we’re very old, we’ve had a lot of time but I don’t think we’ve done all that needs to be done.

There’s a lot more to be done and that I think should be our number one priority – to be in a position to play our role to the maximum.

The second is related to the people. I think we need to make ourselves better known, there are many Malaysians who love nature, who love wild things, who love watching National Geographic or Discovery Channel but it’s just watching.

I suppose most Malaysians have some concerns on our development – whether we have enough of these natural places, but to an ordinary person, there is really not very much you can do as a Malaysian, to make sure our country balances development with nature.

An organisation like MNS gives that opportunity, you become a member, you lend your voice to the organisation, when the organisation speaks, when we are at meetings with government departments, when we are involved with planning of Malaysia’s development, when we have the voice of reason, the voice of sustainability – you are speaking on behalf of the Malaysian people. That’s a fantastic way for people to play their part, to be involved in Malaysia’s development.

This is a second priority of MNS – to reach out to the people and make them understand who we are, we’re not anti-development, we’re an integral part of the country, in fact we’re older that Malaysia, we were formed in 1940.

The third relates to our uniqueness as a membership organisation – there are not many nature societies which are membership organisation – it gives people a chance to participate.

Apart from the voice I just said, you can support the society by joining, but you also gain from it – from our publication, our knowledge. From all our branches which organise talks, trips. You get so much value from joining this society. That I think is our third priority, to give value to our members.

You say you would like to get Malaysia interested in environment issues. At present, most only get involved when an environmental threat affects them directly. How do you change that kind of mindset?

Malaysians basically are quite happy not doing anything, or it’s always somebody else’s problem unless it comes directly to their doorstep. I think it relates to what I said. When you care about something… our society does not really give us a chance to voice our concerns. When you don’t have that avenue to voice your opinion, apart from writing letters to the newspapers, maybe you feel that my voice is not appreciated. It’s not my job – my elected representatives in government will go and handle it for me.

People should stand up and say: “We are a democracy, all our ministers are elected by me, I am a citizen, I have a right to say something”.

I need to tell my children and neighbours that I have a right to say something. That’s how it is, society provides one avenue. It’s not the only avenue, there’s so many other ways that Malaysians can contribute. Joining the society is one way.

Is there a need for a larger voice in our society for the environment, instead of just small groups fighting for their own causes, as and when problems that affect them arise?

The larger voice is MNS. When we speak we don’t just speak for just one housing estate, like Bukit Gasing, for example. For someone reading what we have said in the papers, our appeal to the Prime Minister, the Mentri Besar of Perak, you may think that we are concerned for Perak but no, we’re not. This is a Malaysian heritage. I mean we’ve had 500 to 600 postcards signed from Sabah and Sarawak. Why?

Not because it’s my state… it’s across 700km of sea, but it is my country. This is our national heritage. We want to see tigers, elephants and tapirs roaming free in Belum-Temenggor. So our messages are relating to the country.

You can’t avoid a residents’ association getting all worked up about a development in their backyard but as a national organisation, we need to keep the big picture. We sympathise and will help you in any way we can but the issue is: why is development happening in your backyard? Is it because of planning? Is it how you are zoning in cities?

These are land development issues, land use issues, this is where we address it. So when you sort out a better way of zoning in urban areas, so that you have green lung and green areas – it applies all over the country.

So that’s how we work.

How many members do you have at the moment?

We have just under 5,000.

Is there a trend of more people becoming aware of environmental issues, and want to do something by joining organisation such as MNS, compared to, say, 10 years ago?

No! I find that very disappointing. I think Malaysians when you ask them to join the society – “Oh! I have no time to come for your activities” or “what do I get?” or “what do I have to do?”

This is a common stand I find among Malaysians, when you ask them to join a society, they feel either that it’s an obligation for them to spend some time or that they need to do something, or they want to know what they will receive as a member.

They never think about it as lending a voice to society. I believe in that cause. I’m concerned with my daily job, and career and family and all that, I don’t have time to go out and do something to have more protected areas in Malaysia but there is an organisation that will, and if I join them, I support their activities, I support their cause, I don’t have to attend a single meeting, I don’t have to go for a talk or…I don’t have to do anything at all.

But that does not mean that I’m a silent member, because I’m lending my voice to them. When we speak, we are speaking on behalf of the membership. The more members we have, the stronger our voice is and as an old national NGO and environmental society, we have the means to be a voice of reason, a voice of sustainability. We’re not going to go out there and start chanting, or tying ourselves to bulldozers or trees. That’s not who we are and once people understand this, and the mindset changes, people will join.

Do you see this change anytime soon?

I think this goes back to the three most important things we should do. It’s easy for us to sit down here and say people think we are like this, but the onus is also on us to go out and tell people who we are. We are telling you, you see us in our magazines, on Astro and all, but maybe it is not enough, we need to do more.

Your Belum-Temengor campaign. From the way thing are going, do you see progress, and do you believe the Perak government will do the right thing?

The Mentri Besar has said the right things. Dauk Seri Azmi Khalid, the Natural Resources and Environment Minister, has said the right things. There have been many other public figures who have come up and said the right things. I think the awareness is there. Our postcard campaign has come to a close.

It is at this point that we will continue to engage the state government, because I really believe we have a lot to contribute. To answer your question on whether things will be better in Temenggor, I don’t know, but we’re not just walking away from it. We’ll sustain our engagement with the government. People must realise that we are doing this on behalf of all Malaysians and also the state, because it’s in the absolute interest of Perak to preserve that large block of forest. It will be like a bank. It will be their bank. They will have it. Commercial interests don’t see that as a bank, and just want to look for short - term profits, and if they are allowed to go ahead and do that, then I think the state government is not doing its job.

The state government has a duty to the state and the country to preserve what is probably the most important natural asset. Its value will go up and up, it will be huge source of revenue and life support system – water. I would like the project to feature in 150 to 200 years when the world is fighting for water and there are water shortages everywhere, even in Malaysia and Perak has this vast resource – a big giant sponge, think of what the value is. They will be selling a lot of water to the other states.

How far is MNS willing to go in the Belum-Temenggor issue? Is there a lot of international interest in it?

Yes, there is a lot of international interest, but this relates to the efforts to conserve and protect natural areas in Malaysia. It is not to stop development or logging. If your question is – are foreign interests paying or funding us to do this – absolutely not! This is a Malaysian-driven thing, by Malaysians, by a Malaysian NGO. But the interest is great because just Malaysians should all feel like the elephants and tigers there belong to Malaysians, the world has joint interest, emotional association as well as responsibility to protect all natural sites in the world. To see tigers, how many places in the world can you go and see tigers today? Orang utans – you have to come to Borneo or Sumatra.

Where dose MNS strength lie – is it in conservation, advocacy, education or research – and what are the areas you are looking at improving?

Within our membership we have almost every single expertise in Malaysia. Most of the real experts, the people who from the knowledge base on Malaysian science and conservation are members of this society.

So we represent a very large pool of expertise and this is one of our strengths. We can contribute in almost any field through our volunteer system and membership system. That’s our first strength.

Our second strength is, I suppose, the fact that we are institutional, we are an old, established society. We’re not associated to activists, we are acceptable to them. There are a few individuals who may point a finger at us and say we are anti-government but there will always be such people. We are an old institution, this is our strength. We have an institutional memory, we have a history in Malaysia.

Third, I suppose, is because of our national position; we are also an important link to what is happening outside Malaysia. Almost every international project which involves money either coming in as a grant or as a loan to Malaysia – NGOs are an integral part of that. We need to be worked into that equation. Other conservation issues… we have the focal point for Communication Education and Public Awareness (CEPA), so we have the CEPA – the NGO focal point for Malaysia. So we play a very important role in representing Malaysia outside the country.

That’s also our strength because for a country like Malaysia we need the government representation, we also need the NGO representation and we can’t have only one. If you have only government you will be criticised – where are your people? Yes, you have your government but where are your people? So we there. That’s a great strength for Malaysia, that the Malaysia government has an NGO in the country.

What is your wish for the environment in 2007?

My environmental wish is that at least 10,000 Malaysians out there join the Malaysian Nature Society and every member of the society goes out and gets one friend, at least, to join the society. We will be better, we will be stronger and we will be more relevant in Malaysia. That’s my message.