LETTER | Every environmental advocate and sustainability practitioner living in Kuala Lumpur has a responsibility to be aware of wider local and regional issues on conservation, not just a narrow tunnel vision whose scope is only effectively limited to KL.

Having come from Sarawak to pursue my undergraduate studies in the Klang Valley, I was struck by how much the metropolitan region of KL is considered nationally applicable. Those not from within the Klang Valley area often hear from the rest of the nation through statistical reports or from newsworthy stories.

Yet as the political economic centre of KL, where Think Tanks and corporate headquarters cluster in high-rise buildings, the people in KL have disproportionate access to decision making channels.

However, conservation contexts outside KL have their own distinct ecological niches that require the applications of different scientific and cultural knowledge frameworks. KL-centric perspectives could hinder efforts in local conservation scenes.

Successful and contested conservation efforts we have heard of such as: Bukit Kiara, Taman Tugu Negara and Shah Alam Community Forest, are familiar topics to those following sustainability efforts.

But what about efforts from those who lack channels to KL’s centres of power? We almost never heard of urgent efforts, stories of conservation in Kelantan and Terengganu, nor in Sabah and Sarawak, peripheral areas far from KL.

Conservation news or sustainability initiatives often do not come to national attention with the exception of a specialised audience actively monitoring environment-themed news.

Part of the problem is that local media rarely provide reports on environmental issues outside Kuala Lumpur unless relevant to social media hype or institutional announcements.

Investigative journalism requiring long-term research and investigation into the environmental consequences of the destruction of a wildlife habitat to a local community are even rarer, and nearly non-existent outside of independent media and select local newsrooms.

In my hometown of Kuching in Sarawak, people mostly pay attention to local media reporting on local issues. National news, or more accurately Kuala Lumpur based news, is seen as sensational and only of passing interest unless they relate to bread-and-butter issues, such as economic policy.

Even though there are efforts ongoing led by local communities and grassroot conservationists, there is not a significant effort by KL’s sustainability scene to monitor or actively pay attention to conservation issues outside KL beyond dedicated specialists.

Those who are in the know are informed experts, not the general public. Even in the age of decentralised social media-based news, where regional youth would be more attentive to national developments, the geographic, economic and institutional distance from the Klang Valley area does not incentivise the majority of the population to view themselves as having a stake in national environmental issues.

They remain a local struggle unless attention is caught from the KL centre owing to the capital city’s status as the centre of political and financial power.

The consequence is that environmental damage outside KL is not given prompt attention until it is already too late. Large-scale “development” projects in areas without dense human settlement do not receive the accountability they need.

Sarawak’s example of the Murum Dam displacing local communities exemplifies this, where it only became a national issue through its amplification by environmental NGOs and intergovernmental institutions with global and regional reach and lobbying power.

We cannot afford to amplify them only when danger to wildlife or livelihood is imminent. Environmental and Health Hazards are gradual: beginning with opaque processes of forest zoning; then the degradation of local ecology causing air, water and soil pollution.

Gradually, these problems amplify until, and unless, massive interventions are taken. These interventions must not begin and end in Kuala Lumpur, the process must also occur in everyone’s backyards.

Yet, without solidarity from people in the capital who have outsized influence just from geographically being in an urban site of power with their presence, efforts may be stalled, and habitats run the risk of destruction.

More solidarity and awareness are needed among KL residents on conservation efforts happening elsewhere in other parts of Malaysia.

More must be done to connect and upskill people who live in all areas of Malaysia to be able to respond to local environmental issues, where they can be helped in solidarity with everyone else to expand and localise environmental movements, where local and regional environmental protections can be done.

The writer is a climate and environmental advocate.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.