LETTER | Stop road project in Bukit Cerakah

LETTER | RimbaWatch is concerned with the development of a road from Bandar Nusa Rhu to Setia Alam through the Bukit Cerakah forest complex.

This road, which is 1km long, will permanently sever the Shah Alam Community Forest (SACF) from the Shah Alam Botanical Garden, thereby altering habitat connectivity and accessibility for recreational activities.

According to a biodiversity survey of the SACF, the Malayan tapir, white-handed gibbon and leopard cats, which are protected species under the Wildlife Conservation Act, are still present in the area.

The involvement of tapir in roadkill incidents in the Bukit Cerakah area in recent years has been well-documented, with the most recent incident occurring in November 2023.

This road project not only places protected species under threat from future such incidents but also severs their habitat connectivity with the wider Bukit Cerakah forest complex, therefore reducing their habitat size and risking the sustainability of the species survival in the complex.

It must further be noted that, according to the EU’s Tropical Moist Forests tool, the condition of the forest deforested in the project was classified as “undisturbed” prior to its clearing.

The legal status of the SACF is uncertain. The SACF has challenged the Selangor government’s backdating of the Bukit Cerakah Forest Reserve’s degazettement in court, whereby the degazettement was published in 2022 but came into force in 2000, which is an unusual degazettement process that is uncommonly practised in Malaysia and is legally questionable.

The outcome of the court process is still pending.

Given the above, RimbaWatch urges the government of Selangor to clarify:

1) what was the approval process for this road project and did the project receive environmental impact assessment approval?

2) in the past, the Selangor government has committed to “turning the state into a smart, habitable and prosperous state by 2025”. Therefore, how does building a road through an “undisturbed” forest align with such objectives?

3) how does the government plan to mitigate impacts to biodiversity from this project?

Pending such clarifications, RimbaWatch hopes that the Selangor government will respect the calls made by the Shah Alam Community Forest Society to issue a stop-work order with immediate effect.

ADAM FARHAN is director of RimbaWatch.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.