COMMENT I did not know much about environmental issues until I got elected as founder-president of the Environmental Protection Society, Malaysia (EPSM) in January 1974. I gradually got engrossed  in the various issues and developed a passion for the entire spectrum of the environment.

It seemed to be a natural progression of my student activism and concerns about the governance of the nation and the management of its natural resources.

As there was a paucity of people, even within the EPSM executive council, who were willing to speak out publicly (for a variety of reasons). So, I ended up being the society's public face and spokesman for the two decades that I served as president.

The first study on the pollution of the Klang River was completed in 1975 and it was used subsequently for our efforts to get the river cleaned. Our magazine, Alam Sekitar , from its first issue in mid-1976 became a vehicle to push our advocacy efforts.

Another method of advocacy was the issuing of open letters, like the one I did on Sept 4, 1976, on Pollution of the Malacca Straits. Our concern on nuclear energy began with my participation in the Salzburg Conference for a Non-Nuclear Future in April/May 1977.

We issued A Malaysian Declaration on the Environment on June 5, 1977, to coincide with World Environment  Day. On May 3 that year, I was quoted in The Malay Mail on the need to improve public transport in the Klang Valley to reduce air pollution and the risk of smog.

EPSM joined MNS and other NGOs in the Campaign to Save Endau Rompin National Park against logging in June 1977. We helped organise a public meeting in Petaling Jaya that called for a halt to all logging at the site and the gazetting of the park, with an editorial in the September issue of Alam Sekitar against the failure of positive action.

A joint meeting of six NGOs sent a telegram to the prime minister for a meeting, to which there was no response. The press gave extensive coverage partly because the federal government was unhappy with the inaction of the Pahang state government, which had given a huge concession area of the Endau Rompin park to the sultan.

In November 1977, we welcomed the gazetting of regulations for effluents from palm oil mills, even though we had serious reservations about the adequacy of some provisions. We continued to press, in subsequent years, for better enforcement and tightening of the provisions.

We also spoke out against the idea of establishing an aluminium smelter in Sarawak and in December that year, we welcomed the decision of the government to ban flights of Concorde aircraft over Malaysian airspace.

In 1978, EPSM ran a series of environmental seminars in Perak, Sabah and Sarawak. On May 3, we ran a workshop on “The Sun - Power for the People”. Since the minister of energy declined to attend, Richard  Ho, then a minster in the Prime Minister’s Department opened the event.

The same night, there was forum in Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang on the same topic. On Aug 7, a statement was issued against the setting up of the Tun Dr Ismail Atomic Research Centre as the first step for Malaysia’s move into nuclear power.

Environmental journalism course

On Feb 22, 1979, we criticised the Selangor state government for excising 532 acres from the Ampang Forest Reserve for development. On April 19, I was elected as the first Malaysian director of the Environment Liaison Centre (ELC), which is based in Nairobi, Kenya, and served for a period of two years.

On May 21, EPSM strongly criticised some official attempts to allow the Klang River to become a sewer! We ran the first environmental journalism course in Kuala Lumpur with the Malaysian Press Institute from April 2 to 6.

A Malaysian Declaration on Renewable Sources and Policies was issued on the occasion of International Sun Day on May 3.

On the occasion of World Environment Day in 1979, I cycled against a car from SS2 in Petaling Jaya to the newly launched Taman Titiwangsa in Kuala Lumpur, beating it through the traffic jams by few minutes. The picture ( left ), taken on my arrival with my gas mask, has become somewhat iconic!

In September, EPSM joined a campaign to save Court Hill from being developed for the headquarters of Malayan Banking, which was still built despite our protests. In October, the results of a year-long study of rubbish collection in the Klang Valley found it to be unsatisfactory and among our recommendations were for garbage separation at source. It called all the dumpsites deplorable.

After viewing with unhappiness the Selangor state government's flip-flops on stopping the operations of two quarries that were threatening the unique ecosystems within the Batu Caves area and the associated noise and the  air pollution, EPSM coordinated a group of NGOs and political parties that pushed for decisive action in 1980.

This resulted in a joint gathering at Batu Caves on Oct 12 that year, which was dispersed by the police on the grounds that they had objected the night before (the notice was shown to me personally by the Rawang OCPD only that morning). We quietly dispersed, but got much publicity the next day through the newspapers. Eventually, the quarries were shut down on.

Our attempt to hold a public inquiry on palm oil mill effluents (POME) at the Majestic Hotel in Kuala Lumpur on Nov 1, 1980 had to be aborted because the Brickfields OCPD instructed a cancellation as no prior permission had been obtained from him.

We later found out that that the district police chief had been urged to take this action by the then director-general of the Department of Environment (DOE), ST Sundram, who opposed  the inquiry, to which he and his officers had been invited.

In December, we published an assessment of the environment in Petaling Jaya, after a thorough physical examination of all sections. It received wide press coverage, with some highlighting some of the of the dirtier parts of the town. The PJ Municipal Council president took public exception to these comments.

Amendments to Societies Act deplored

At our AGM in May 1981, we adopted a resolution deploring the amendments to the Societies Act that had been rushed through Parliament and subsequently joined a campaign against them.  It was launched on May 24 that year by 91 societies. A secretariat was established which  opposed amendments that were tabled in November 1982.  

The photo on the next page appeared on the cover of Alam Sekitar , Vol 6 No 3, which reported on our assessment of the Klang River siltation, which was serious.

In January 1982, EPSM organised a major seminar to review how the Malaysian environment was 10 years after the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, or the Stockholm Declaration. There was a general agreement that environmental quality was deteriorating and that action to curb adverse impacts were far from satisfactory.

Recommendations were made on areas ranging from water to occupational health. We were also upset with a proposal to construct a 110MW hydroelectric dam in Taman Negara by Lembaga Letrik Negara (LLN).

We coordinated a campaign with other NGOs against this but were harassed by the Registrar of Societies and got minimal media coverage. Even an appeal to all MPs was ignored. But the project was finally abandoned in January 1983.

Results of an EPSM-UPM air pollution joint study in Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman in Kuala Lumpur, conducted in March 1981, were released in 1982. These showed that lead levels in Kuala Lumpur were three times that considered acceptable in the WHO Guidelines.  

We submitted extensive comments on the KL Draft Structure Plan in mid-1982, but were disappointed that there was no feedback and almost all were ignored in the final plan when it was gazetted. In December we issued a statement criticising the PM's proposal for a 70 million population target and the launching of the National Car project.

EPSM's Envirowalks in major Malaysian towns started with that in Petaling Jaya on Jan 30, 1983. This was followed by such environmental awareness walks in Seremban, Ipoh, Kuching, Sibu, Miri, Kapit, Kuala Lumpur, Kuantan, Malacca, Kota Bharu, Kuala Trengganu, Alor Star, Kangar, Kota Kinabalu, and George Town.

Our overall observation was that almost all the towns had badly maintained drains as well as public facilities, including bus stops and streetlights.

On Oct 26, we issued a press statement criticising the proposed amendments to the Official Secrets Act. We followed this by joining a campaign that had the support of retired auditor-general Ahmad Nordin.

Also during 1983, I was featured in a documentary entitled 'Nasib Sungei Kelang', which depicted the state of the river from its source in Gombak right down to the estuary at the Straits of Malacca. It was procduced and shown on Radio-Television Malaysia (RTM).

A total of 5,000 Malaysians signed our protest against the unsatisfactory public transport system by April 1984. In the same month, EPSM protested against the passing of the regressive Printing Presses and Publications Bill by Parliament.

In July we came out in support of the Papan Anti-Radioactive Waste Dump Committee and criticised the irresponsible manner in which the Asian Rare Earth factory in Bukit Merah was disposing the waste from the processing of tin tailings.

We designated our vice-president, KK Tan, to represent us on the Support Group, which addressed an open letter to the prime minister in December 1984 to think again about the project.

The group also helped to bring in a world-renowned Japanese geneticist, Prof Ichikawa, who declared the Bukit Merah factory operations to be harzardous in early 1985.

Tomorrow - Part 2: A decade-long, futile battle against Bakun Dam

GURMIT SINGH is a well-known environmentalist and social activist.