Still Reeling From Pollution Tasik Chini Retains Unesco Reserve Status

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Despite still recovering from the effects of mining and concern over plans to create plantations nearby, a committee under the UN Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) has decided that Tasik Chini will retain its status as a biosphere reserve.
Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad said the decision was made during a meeting in Paris yesterday, where the International Coordinating Council of Man and the Biosphere Programme (ICCMAB) conducted a periodic review of the Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve.
It decided that Tasik Chini fulfils the necessary criteria, after accounting for the Pahang government’s efforts to improve management of the site.
This includes rezoning the area to ensure the biosphere reserve still fulfils its function, gazetting the Chini permanent forest reserve, establishing the Pahang State Parks Corporation and imposing a moratorium on mining activities.
“The ICCMAB 35 decision is very meaningful to the nation and Pahang in maintaining Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve’s status.
“I congratulate the Pahang government for this recognition and hope the management of the Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve will continue to be improved,” the minister said in a statement last night.
Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Nik AhmadHe also expressed commitment to helping state governments rehabilitate existing biosphere reserves and nominate promising places as new sites.
Tasik Chini - once famous for its lotus blooms and legends of a fearsome dragon - is the first of three Unesco biosphere reserves in the country.
The others are Crocker Range in Sabah and Bukit Bendera in Penang.
It was recognised as a biosphere reserve in 2009 and gazetted as a permanent forest reserve in 2019.
Despite this, water in the lake has become polluted due to mining and logging operations in the surrounding area.
Last year, Malaysiakini highlighted that a preliminary report prepared for the ICCMAB’s periodic review found that Tasik Chini no longer fulfils the criteria to be a biosphere reserve due to environmental degradation of the area.
Malaysian authorities were told to submit detailed plans for the reserve to the international body, including updated zoning plans for the area and how the government intends to manage it.
The environmental destruction of the area has also adversely affected the Orang Asli community in the area, who depended on the lake for water and fish, and on the surrounding forest for forestry products like rotan and damar.
They have instead become dependent on water tankers to supply clean water.
In May, Malaysiakini reported locals and activists expressing concerns over the continued presence of heavy machinery at a nearby mine even though it has ceased operations, and plans to convert six parcels of land in the area into forest plantations. - Mkini

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