Oil palm ‘encroaching’ Dalat Water Catchment Area, CM’s help sought
KUCHING: A desperate cry for help is resonating in Dalat as an oil palm plantation project has encroached into the Dalat Water Catchment Area ( DWCA).
The folks there are keeping their fingers crossed that Chief Minister Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Satem would step in quickly to resolve this matter.
The cry for help started about a year ago.
Kimi Lambang, 56, like many Melanaus during `Musim Lelamai' (caterpillar season), ventured into the forest engulfing DWCA to look for the expensive local delicacy `lelamai' - a type of edible black caterpillar that can cost RM150 per kilogramme.
However, he got a shock when he found that the forest that the Melanau community had sometimes ventured into to collect jungle produce had partially been levelled for an oil palm plantation. He also noticed some time ago some logging activities in the area.
Following that discovery, Kimi, a contractor by profession, started to notice that whenever there is a heavy downpour, dead fish and prawns would surface in Sungai Oya, a tributary of Batang Igan that is draining the whole Dalat district.
“In April 1996, the government announced that DWCA would be gazetted. But after that, we don't hear about it anymore. Instead, we see the catchment area being turned into an oil palm plantation.
“I am very concerned, especially when I noticed that there is dead fish and prawns in Sg Oya. I believe the river water is now poisonous because after a heavy rain all the pesticides or chemicals used in the plantation is drained into the river, killing riverine life,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.
Since the beginning of logging activities and plantation in DWCA, Kimi claimed water quality from the tap in Dalat district had declined. Quite often, tap water is murky and sandy, he added.
In order to catch the attention of the government, Kimi and some Dalat residents have organised themselves to form a protem committee called `Dalat Bertindak', with Kimi being its chairman.
Attempts to solve the problem have been made through letter writing to some relevant people, but until now their efforts have fallen on deaf ears.
Their final hope now is to catch the attention of Adenan, the newly-minted chief minister who has already gained fame for being a listener and a problem solver.
“Though he is new in his office (Adenan was appointed chief minister last Feb 28), he seems to act very fast and effective in solving people's problem.
“We hope the new chief minister will do the same for us. Our problem needs to be looked into as soon as possible before pollution damages our health and our environment.”
He said their next attempt would be drafting an official letter to Adenan asking for help.
In the letter, his committee would include their two main requests namely, moving the water intake point from Sg Oya to Sg Lebasau and gazetting DWCA into a protected area.