I work in Damansara Heights in Kuala Lumpur. On my journey to the office, I will pass through a housing area in Damansara. I choose to drive through this housing area because there's a reduced traffic density and the surroundings are very peaceful and beautiful.

There are decade-old trees on a small hill in this housing area. One can feel the breeze and tranquility upon driving in this area when compared with the busy Sprint highway nearby. At times, I can see families of monkeys (adult and baby monkeys) hanging around the trees or on the road side. In the evening, some residents will be jogging around this area, and there will be one old uncle that will be enjoying the nature on his wheelchair.

Recently, I saw something that was indeed a horrible thing to happen. Excavators turned up on top of the hill. They started to clear the land and chopped down the trees. The green lung that was once a nice place to be is no longer there. When it is raining, muddy waters flowed down from the hill and flooded the drains. From that day onwards, I have not seen the families of monkeys in this housing area anymore. One wonders where they gave gone?

I am just a visitor to this place, but my heart bleeds for the Mother Nature. Why did City Hall approve this hill-top development in the first place? I may not be one of the local residents there, but I am equally angry to see this whole episode. What we have here is an open destruction of nature, happening right in front of our eyes day by day.

This project is named Damansara 21, comprising 21 luxury bungalows costing between RM10 million to RM15 million each. The residents of Medan Damansara have openly protested this development and surprisingly, the developer has issued a statement saying that it will ensure that the project is to be conducted in a responsible manner.

I don't believe this. How can you be doing things responsibly when all the trees have gone, and the monkeys have no where to go, and the earth is washed down to the drains when it rains? For goodness sake, there are people's houses right at the foot of the hill. Can they still sleep peacefully at night knowing that there's a significant risk of a landslide crushing down on their roofs because of this project?

To some people, this may be called development. To me, it is an irresponsible and irreversible destruction of Mother Nature. From now onwards, I will just drive along the Sprint highway to reach my office.