"... is there any justification in cutting down indigenous forests so that we can transplant non-indigenous flowering plants to create a botanic garden? is there any logic in substituting a NATURAL forest environment with an artificially created garden?
if an empty unused degraded piece of land were to be used to create this garden, then yes! there would be good justification in rehabilitating such land to create gardens for the benefit of the public..."
The land in question is currently not being used per se. And if degraded means undeveloped, then I guess that would also make it the case. But it's jungle. Primary or secondary is totally immaterial. And the debate is on Bukit Cahaya in Shah Alam and how there are plans underway to make what little bit of forest there is into a botanic garden.
The quote by the MNS member sums it up. How ironic is it to propose cutting down wild trees so that we can plant new ones in neater order? It perplexes me as to how such logic even comes about? My crass and under-educated guess: politics which beget power which, in turn, begets money.
Let's say that I'm a master guesser. Would it then be unfair to equate this botanic garden idea to money? The powers that be and the politicians in between the equation would likely dissuade me from that notion, I'm sure. But they don’t reveal why I should be swayed otherwise.
Does anyone in government think that we, the Rakyat, are as ignorant as our Neolithic ancestors? You can't throw some half-baked idea like that at the people and expect them to lap it all up. And while people who run our country seem to think of us as daft, let's not assume the same of them. If there is a justifiable reason to make this harebrained idea a truly marvelous one, why will they not share their knowledgeable insights with the very same people they're trying to con-vince? If they see something in it, why not sell the idea to us?
Agriculture and Agro-based Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said he had asked a consultant to submit a new plan to convert a bigger area of the park into a botanical garden by the end of the year to enable work on the first phase to begin next year. Quoted from Bernama, 19th August 2006.
The first plan by the consultant was for a forest conservation project. It got rejected. The good Minister then said he sent the proposal back to the un-named consultant (who, I'm guessing again, has expertise and interest in the field of forest conservation as opposed to, say, horticulture) for new plans of a botanical garden? What the fish is he thinking?!
"If possible, we want to turn the entire area into a botanical garden, not for forest conservation. Who wants to trek into the jungle?" he told reporters after launching his ministry's family day at the agriculture park on Saturday.
Ladies and gents, these are people we elected into government... It would thus be us that I should blame for such ridiculous incidences. And by the way, did he just think up the plan while he was touring the park, hence explaining the lack of any intelligible logic in the scheme?
He said the first phase of the project, which entailed upgrading and enhancement of the park, would be awarded to contractors through open tenders.
And my guess is that is their motivation.
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