Balancing Act Between Livelihood And Clean Rivers In Perak

His trusted machete by his side – he calls it his “wife” – and a frown across his brows, he looks over the naked hill near his village Kampung Orang Asli Sungai Tonggang in the Bukit Kinta Forest Reserve, Perak. When Google Earth satellites last took pictures of the area on Feb 16, 2024, the area was lush with trees and vegetation. 

Now, it’s a barren hilltop, cut into slopes with yellow soil exposed to the elements. At the base of the hill is the Semat River, which is more like a stream. It is about a metre wide and feeds directly into the Kinta River, one of the major rivers in Perak. On that July afternoon, the banks too were clear of any vegetation, save for a few shrubs.

Talk at the village, which is populated by the Temiar tribe, has it that the state government has opened the area to independent farmers, or smallholders, to grow durian. 

All that talk does not concern the guide Long “Rambo” Kamaruddin, 64, as much as the barren hill and riverbanks. He told Bernama with the river buffers gone, there are already signs that the river may be “going bad” again.

“There was light rain the other day and the water was already cloudy. Like milk with not enough tea. But actually more like milk without tea. And this was before heavy rains,” he said, a cup of milky tea in his hands.

Although the Semat River minimally affects the Seno’oi River, the main river serving the Orang Asli community in Kampung Tonggang, Long does not like what the land clearing augurs. A milky river means the fish and the insects will disappear again, like how they did over two decades ago when there was logging activity upstream from the village.

As someone who is more comfortable in the forest than indoors – he does not even own a mobile phone – Long’s whole identity is entangled in the forest and the rivers. 

“When we clear land for farming, we do it far from the riverside. We don’t cut down trees next to the riverbank if we want to plant tapioca or whatever,” he said.

But in the battle between livelihood and the environment, the money and what it can buy often win out. Some of the Orang Asli were involved in clearing the trees on the hill. Doing clearing jobs like this can net them RM3,000 or so, which may be double the money they make elsewhere.

“What to do? They’ve gotta eat,” he said, sighing. 

 

Other than being a source of drinking water, rivers hold a deep, almost mystical, meaning to the people in Perak. They figure heavily in the state’s history and culture. 

A river was where the first British Resident, before the British colonised the Malay states, met his end. The Perak Sultan’s investiture ceremony requires the ruler to be bathed in waters taken from seven tributaries of the Perak River. 

Currently, the rivers in Perak are among the cleanest in the country. The Perak Department of Environment reported on April 2, 2024, that 56 out of 68 rivers in Perak were classified as either Class One, which means the rivers need little water treatment and support very sensitive marine life species such as kelah fish (Malayan mahseer), or Class Two which requires conventional water treatment, supports some sensitive marine life species and is suitable for recreational activities.

Experts agreed most rivers in Perak, which has the Titiwangsa Mountain Range on its east side, are in relatively good shape. However, they cautioned that some actions and inactions involving Perak rivers, such as uncontrolled deforestation and rampant violation of river buffer zones, may end up making things worse for the people, ecosystem, environment and economy.  

“Slowly, but eventually, the water quality will drop. Both quality and quantity,” said Prof (retired) Maketab Mohamed, formerly of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

The water quality expert told Bernama this was because buffer zones serve multiple functions in maintaining the health and cleanliness of rivers, such as controlling the runoff water from the rains by slowing it down, thus preventing soil erosion. It also filters pollutants from the runoff water before they can go into the river.

He added another function of river buffers is that they provide a “mini-habitat” for wildlife, “from the insects to the birds to the mammals.” 

Despite their importance, river buffer violations are often an overlooked aspect of maintaining river cleanliness. There are few laws that address river buffers in Malaysia. For example, the Waters Act of 1920, enacted over 100 years ago, mentions riverbanks but not river buffers specifically. The punishment for violating riverbanks ranges from RM500 to RM1,000, depending on the offence. 

The Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID), which is under the Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation, has guidelines on how big the river buffer zone should be. As per the guidelines, the width of the buffer zone on each side of the river should be about the width of the river, to a maximum width of 50 metres. 

However, DID lacks enforcement powers as land, including riverbanks, falls under the jurisdiction of the state government. 

Last year, the Perak government passed a Water Resources Enactment, which gives the state authority the power to reserve land for river buffers and it carries heavier penalties for offenders, up to RM300,000 in fines and/or no more than five years in prison. Offences include not taking any action to prevent runoff, sedimentation or pollutants from entering rivers.  

 

Downstream where the Kinta River meets the Perak River by Kampung Bandar, there are several oil palm smallholdings along the river. Bernama took a boat ride along the river to survey agricultural activities, most of which were on the eastern side of the Kinta River.

In several of the smallholdings, oil palm trees were growing right on the riverbank. In a few instances, oil palm trees had fallen into the river due to erosion. Some are barely hanging on, teetering towards the river on one side like a frondy Tower of Pisa.

While both banks of Kinta River are full of greenery, Kumpulan Aktivis Sahabat Alam - KUASA (Friends of Nature Activist Group) member Ahmad Nizar Kamaruddin said only one bank has the correct kind. 

“When they cleared the buffer zone and planted trees like oil palm or whatever, there were no native trees. So the soil is no longer secure, the area isn’t secure. That’s the reason the soil breaks apart,” he said.

He added big plantations rarely violate river buffer zones as they have the resources to make up for the loss of 50 or so metres of land along the river. However, individual farmers or smallholders do not have that luxury, seeking to utilise every inch of land to maximise profit.

So far, no action has been taken against the individual farmers. 

The main reason is that it would be unfair for small and individual farmers whose livelihoods will be affected severely should the government require them to uproot the offending trees, many of which are still fruitful. They would also have to pay to restore the buffer zones with riparian vegetation.

Another thing is that there is no allocation to compensate smallholders for giving up part of their land to create river buffer zones, according to Adzmi Hassan, president of the National Association of Smallholders Malaysia (NASH).

“If the government wants to take over land just to create a reserve, by right there is no need for compensation. But for the smallholders, whatever they think about it, you have to compensate.”

According to a 2020 ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute report, the monthly income of many independent smallholders is about RM1,600, which is below Malaysia’s poverty line.

Perak State Executive Council member for Science, Environment and Green Technology Teh Kok Lim told Bernama the individual farmers have been encroaching on the river reserve land for a while now.

“Previously there was no issue about their small encroachment. But then it became bigger and bigger. So the enforcement process may take some time. Sometimes they might request a certain period to complete their harvesting,” he said via Zoom.

“Sometimes, as the government, if the land is not required urgently, not an emergency, we might … not to say we will consider it because if we say that, then people will keep on doing all these illegal things. It depends on the urgency. But we will try to accommodate,” Teh added.

Oil palm trees mature at three years and produce fruit every two weeks up to 30 years. 

 

Livelihood or not, smallholders may not have a choice soon. Since June 2023, the European Union (EU) has banned imports of palm oil and derivatives if they are associated with deforestation after 2019. 

Adzmi from NASH said other countries will likely follow suit so they won’t be shut out of the EU market.

Currently, palm oil certification in Malaysia does not necessarily penalise smallholders for not strictly complying with river buffer zone rules. Nevertheless, they are one of the environmental requirements to receive certification.

Wan Muqtadir Wan Abdul Fatah, head of Sustainability at British Standards Institution (BSI) Malaysia told Bernama via email that encroachment is not always an immediate deal-breaker for certification as Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) aims to support smallholders in transitioning to sustainable practices.

“This sometimes involves providing them with time and resources to comply with environmental regulations,” he said.

He added that more training and engagement are needed to help the smallholders understand the importance of sustainable practices.

There are no certification requirements to encourage durian smallholders to adopt more sustainable practices but the good news is that repairing river buffers is not difficult. The important thing is to plant trees and shrubs that would grip the earth tightly.

Many non-governmental organisations have nurseries where they grow riparian plants and trees to help restore the buffer zone. 

And time is also on one’s side.

Long remembers when the logging stopped. It was not long before the river started healing and most of the fish and insects returned.

“For a year, there was no erosion in the river. The grass grew. It (riverbank) is covered, so there’s no more erosion when it rains,” said Long.