The Pulau Kukup issue in Johor has laid bare critical deficiencies with regards to governance, transparency and public participation in the country.
The level of public outcry generated by the media-publicised gazette notification announcing the removal of Pulau Kukup’s protected area status proves that such actions are of high public concern.
It demonstrates that such matters, once thought to be the domain of environmentalists, are now issues of interest to all levels of society – with the rakyat of Malaysia as a whole, the federal government, the members of the state assemblies and the members of the state executive councils all voicing their concern.
It evidences the fact that all of us are stakeholders in the continued proper protection of our natural resources.
The decision to ultimately degazette Pulau Kukup as a national park transpired without the participation of stakeholders; with many stakeholders perhaps only the wiser once a Gazette Notification of the decision was in circulation.
Unfortunately, this is not a surprising state of affairs, nor is it considered “illegal”, given that the majority of legislation that governs protected areas in the country does not require public consultation in such decision making.
The absence of effective public or stakeholder consultation, as well as other tenets of good governance such as transparency through access to information, needs to be addressed urgently under the new administration.
Information is key to empowerment and access to environmental information must be recognised and facilitated. This has to happen at both the federal and state levels.
Gazette notifications on the status (whether declared or revoked) of protected areas, forest reserves etc. are published in the federal and state gazettes (one for each state).
Federal and state gazettes used to be made available in hardcopy before the digital age. Now the federal gazette notifications are available for free online from the attorney general’s website but the state gazettes are only available on the Lawnet site (Lawnet.com.my) which has a high subscription fee, except for Sabah which has its own Lawnet site where the state gazette is freely available.
Similarly, only the Federal Constitution and federal laws are available on Lawnet while state constitutions and state laws are only partially available at best. Currently, there is no single site with a comprehensive collection of relevant state laws.
Towards key reforms in protected area governance, people empowerment, inclusiveness and access to information, we urge all levels of government to institute the following:
* Amend forestry and protected area related legislation to include a requirement for consultation with stakeholders and the public before any decision to revoke or excise wholly or partly any areas constituting a protected area is taken. Following such amendments, pursue the development of regulations or rules that outline a meaningful consultation and finally a decision-making process and protocol to ensure consultation is not reduced to a mere rubber stamp exercise.
* Ensure there is free and easy access to information related to protected areas such as all gazette notifications, as well to all legislation (whether parent of subsidiary) at all levels of government related to protected areas.
This includes making access to online law portals such as Lawnet.com.my free to the public.
We hope to see these changes instituted urgently.
Concerned Malaysian Conservationists is a group of environmental activists.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.