Johor Natural Heritage Expedition 2016 chief Maketab Mohamed believes in the need for environmental education to be implemented at all academic levels.

Speaking to FMT, Maketab, who is also a professor at the Engineering Department of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, said although Malaysians had for the most part taken the issue of pollution lightly, it was “never too late to change.”

He said however that a major “paradigm shift” was needed, especially in terms of instilling environmental awareness.

“We teach our children to be very religious and tell them to communicate with God through prayers and other rituals, but we tend to forget that God also gave all of us the responsibility of taking care of the environment as its Khalifah (vicegerent). People tend to forget that it is sinful to throw rubbish everywhere or to pollute the sea, the soil and the air,” he said.

Maketab, however, conceded that this paradigm shift could not take place unless the masses were environmentally aware.

“Therefore, again, it boils down to environmental awareness. Without having a critical mass of people, maybe about 60% or more (environmentally aware), the paradigm shift will never occur.”

Ecotourism & Conservation Society Malaysia (Ecomy) CEO Andrew Sebastian however disagreed that a lack of awareness was the issue, believing instead that it boiled down to Malaysians “lacking the will to act.”

“We don’t really lack awareness as we already have the online media telling us what we need to know,” he told FMT.

“The question is why aren’t we doing anything about it?

“There is no holistic approach, no integrated action plan, and no political will in terms of being environmentally sustainable.”

However, he agreed with Maketab that it was still not too late to change.

“Every year, we know that there will be the rainy season, the dry season, and there will be haze during the burning seasons. Now we have to ask ourselves if we’re going to do something about it.”