Public urged to stop promoting, consuming pitcher plant rice
KUCHING: The Society of Wilderness (SOW) Sarawak is urging the public to stop promoting the selling and consumption of ‘Pitcher Plant Rice’, an indigenous delicacy of Sarawak, because the pitcher is a protected plant.
Emphasising the seriousness of the issue, chairperson Sandra Wong pointed out that for the pitcher plant, known as ‘periuk kera’ in Malay, to be listed as protected species, it means the population in the wild are limited and declining.
“We observed that there are news reports, travel websites and social media promoting the native delicacy of late, that even BBC picked up the story. So we are concerned about such promotion,” she told a press conference yesterday.
Even though natives in Sarawak and Sabah still harvest pitcher plants from the wild and use them to cook rice for self-consumption, she said the traditional food should not be commercialised or be bought and sold in the market.
“All species of pitcher plants (Nepenthes) are in fact listed as Protected Plants in the Sarawak Wildlife Protection Ordinance 1998,” she informed.
“The protected plant status means that anyone who collect, cultivate, sell or offers for sale the pitcher plant must obtain the licence from the Sarawak Forest Department, without which is tantamount to committing an offence and liable upon conviction to a fine of RM10,000 and one year imprisonment,” she warned.
Lack of environmental awareness and knowledge including laws and regulations, Wong highlighted, caused people to commit the offences.
Its committee member Teh Seng Leong, a shutterbug who has been capturing the fascinating pitcher plants for 10 years, shared that it was getting harder to find the plants in nearby wild surroundings today.
“Pitcher plants grow in rocky and sandy soils that are deficient in essential nutrients, making it incompatible for most plants to be able to grow.
“But fascinatingly, nature has its own way to survive. It modifies their leaves into a pitcher to collect insects and through certain process convert to obtain mineral nutrition. That’s the reason why it is distinctive,” he elaborated.
The unfavourable condition where the plants grow, he added, is also factor for their relatively slow growth rate to evolve and as such deserve to be protected and preserved.
“So if people harvest them for culinary purpose, they will slowly disappear from the wilderness,” he said.
Wong revealed that at least 31 species of pitcher plants have been identified in Sarawak’s lush forest and rich biodiversity.
“And some of the pitcher plant species are unique to individual places. What you find in Kuching, you may not find in Miri or elsewhere,” she explained.
The society’s past chairman Coffee Chang pointed out that pitcher plants do not enhance the flavour of dishes for they only served as a decorative container to hold the food.
“Traditionally, the pitcher or cup shape makes it easier to store food to bring to farm like how the Chinese’s dumpling where bamboo leaves are used to wrap and pack the glutinous rice,” he said.
Those who want to commercialise the pitcher plant, he advised, can obtain the licence from relevant authorities to cultivate, breed and grow the plant in farm with proper method.
“If you take the pitcher plants and grow them at home with fertilised soils and sufficient water, the pitchers will not form and only the leaves will go up,” he added.
SOW Sarawak thus urged the public to not harvest the pitcher plants without approval from the relevant authorities and without control as well as stop buying and selling of pitcher plants as this act will only cause the plant’s population to decrease.
For more information, visit the Sarawak Forestry Department website at www.forestry. sarawak.gov.my/.