For the last 36 years, Salleh, the longest-serving Malaysia Nature Society (MNS) president, has been fighting to save whatever green spaces that remain.

And in the process, he has taken on everyone, from powerful politicians to the royalty.

Salleh said green spaces were being eaten up by development.

“It saddens me, that greed is taking over a lot of logic and rationality from people,” he told FMT in a recent interview, noting how green spaces were giving way to housing and office development.

Salleh, 78, said the same was the case with the Bukit Kiara Park in Kuala Lumpur, where a plan to develop high rise buildings has met with stiff opposition from conservationists and residents.

Salleh said the government’s initial plan was to turn it into a public park and to set up the country’s first arboretum there.

As the Forest Research Institute (FRI) director, he was given the task of overlooking the planning for the arboretum.

He recalled how trees planted at the park were all bulldozed to develop what is today the Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club, now known as the Tournament Players Club.

He said the government had then spent close to RM600,000 on international consultancies to come up with the design and architectural plans for the arboretum/park.

FMT, after sighting the Taman Kiara master plan report (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) done by Royston, Hanamoto, Alley & Abey landscape architects/planners, learned that the proposal by the FT ministry came about as an arboretum of national stature did not exist in the country.

The master plan report of 1982 said an arboretum was necessary as the forests in the country “constitute a genetic reservoir of incredible diversity and reflect a continuity of divergence since the Cretaceous period”.

Because of the complexity of the tropical forest situation, many species would be extinct before their potential was fully realised, the report said.

The arboretum was also to act as a national institute for education and research.

Salleh said it was the late Ghafar Baba, who as deputy prime minister had approved part of the Bukit Kiara green lung to be turned into a golf course.

“There were several occasions where I crossed swords with him. I was labelled by him as a person who was anti-golf courses,” he said.

He said he had then written an article on the hazards of golf courses, where chemicals are used to maintain the landscape.

“Yet you get all the Bangladeshi workers jumping into the pond to collect the golf balls. That’s polluted water.

“If you don’t believe me, get a chemist to get water from the golf courses and look at the quality of the water. That is why golf courses are always green and without weed,” said Salleh.

Salleh said after retiring in 1995, his company TropBioforest Sdn Bhd was appointed by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) to set up two acres within the hilly areas to plant indigenous trees.

“But after three years, they didn’t extend my contract.

“The arboretum didn’t take off,” he said.

He said today, Taman Lembah Kiara and Taman Rimba Kiara and the golf course (TPC) remain.

“Up to today, you don’t have a national arboretum, you don’t even have a national botanical garden and no natural history museum,” he said.

He said the government had acquired the land for public purposes and it was wrong to give it up for commercial purposes, such as multi-storey buildings.

“That is what is happening. The principle is that the government acquires property for public purposes but it is then turned into commercial use.

“To me, this is downright illegal.”

Salleh said a similar fate almost befell the Kota Damansara forest reserve, originally called the Sungai Buloh forest reserve.

He said he confronted then Selangor menteri besar Mohamad Khir Toyo who had approved the area for housing.

“I told him, Yang Berhormat, that is the oldest forest reserve in the country, and if you bulldoze that, I’m going to tie myself to the first tree that you will fell, and my life will be in your hands.”

Salleh said after Khir’s administration was defeated in the 2008 general election, the area was re-gazetted as a forest reserve.

At the Kota Damansara Community Forest (KDCF), a trail is named after him to remember his efforts in saving that forest reserve.

Salleh also helped to stop many other plans that would endanger forest reserves.

He had fought to stop the road project from Kuala Tahan into Taman Negara, and “helicopter logging” in the Kuala Muda water catchment forests of Kedah.

He said the project would have devastated the rice fields in the surrounding areas.

Salleh also led MNS in protesting a proposal for a linear city over Sungai Gombak as well as the relocation of the National Zoo.

When he was the director-general of the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM), which was under the then Energy, Water and Communications Ministry, his outspokenness caught the attention of the minister.

He was eventually called for a meeting with the late Lim Keng Yaik.

“He asked me, why was I condemning the government? I told him, it’s not me, it’s the president of MNS, and not the D-G of FRIM. I told him, because I was elected by the members, so I have to voice the members’ complaints.”

He said he was also summoned by the late Sultan Azlan Shah, the Perak sultan.

The sultan enquired about his statements criticising the logging in the Belum Rainforest.

“I told him, I did that in my capacity as the MNS president, because the people voted for me, and if I don’t voice their complaints, I cannot be the president.”

Salleh said a week after his audience, he received a letter from the palace, naming him as a recipient of the Datuk Seri title.

Salleh recalled another incident involving a ruler.

He said he had received a report that logging activities were being carried out in the Pasoh forest reserve in Negeri Sembilan, by a company linked to the ruler.

Salleh, whose father once worked as the driver for the Negri Sembilan ruler, decided to take up the case.

“I told him that the area was being used as an international area for research and if he allowed logging there and people were to find out, he would get a bad name. And with that, he agreed to save the Pasoh forest reserve, and move the logging elsewhere.

On the Bukit Kiara controversy, Salleh said the park had yet to be gazetted as a public park.

“That was why I set up the Friends of Bukit Kiara (FoBK). It was to fight for the gazettement of the public space as a park.

“It is frustrating,” he said.

“The Cabinet approved the gazettement of Bukit Kiara in 2007, but it is still not gazetted to date.

“Under the Kuala Lumpur City Plan 2020, it is mentioned it will be gazetted as Taman Awam Berskala Besar, but it still has not been gazetted.

“Is it free for all now? At the moment yes,” he said.

Salleh now plans to write a book on his works.

“My final autobiography will be titled, ‘Money Does Grow On Trees’,” he laughed.