I refer to the recent announcement regarding the allocation of RM60 million for the construction of wildlife-friendly viaducts along the East-West Highway, which bisects the Royal Belum State Park and Temengor Forest Reserve.

The viaducts are a key component of the Royal Belum State Park - Temengor Forest Reserve corridor, which is one of the 37 wildlife corridors proposed by the Central Forest Spine (CFS) Master Plan in order to enhance ecological connectivity between the most important forest complexes in Peninsular Malaysia.

While the government's good intentions in providing safe passage for wildlife across the East-West Highway and implementing the visionary CFS Master Plan, which was prepared by the Federal Town and County Planning Department, must be commended, I wonder if infrastructure development is the most appropriate use of this large sum of money at the moment.

The CFS Master Plan entails more than just the construction of viaducts.

The plan also specifies a host of landscape management and human-wildlife conflict mitigation actions required for the establishment of the wildlife corridors.

In the case of the Royal Belum State Park - Temengor Forest Reserve corridor, the East-West Highway poses a relatively low barrier to wildlife movement, as animals such as elephants still cross the highway at grade everyday with few incidents.

On the other hand, the widespread conversion of forests to plantations that is rapidly taking place along the highway, as well as the prevalence of poachers who enter the forests at various points along the highway, present much more serious and urgent threats to the integrity of the envisaged Royal Belum State Park - Temengor Forest Reserve corridor, as well as to the safety of the wildlife that pass through it.

Bearing in mind the limited funds that can be spared for wildlife conservation, it is imperative that whatever money available is put to the best possible use.

In this case, constructing viaducts does not seem to be the most optimal use of the RM60 million allocated.

The money would be more effectively used to increase the number of wildlife enforcement officers patrolling the highway and adjacent forests, as well as to establish a Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme that would allow the Perak state government to forego converting forests along within the corridor to plantations, or even to gazette the Temengor Forest Reserve as a protected area.

The creation of the viaducts would also entail massive construction works that would disrupt wildlife movement.

It would therefore be wiser to build them at a later stage, once the more pressing threats have been arrested and when the need to upgrade the East-West Highway arises.