The moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang has been extended again, for the third time, until the end of the year. The ban, which was scheduled to expire on September 14, has been extended by the federal government because local operators have still not managed to clear up existing stockpiles…

Despoiled soil. Poisoned water. Polluted air. The bauxite mining fiasco in Pahang triggered a massive environmental disaster in Kuantan last year. Yet if you were to have asked local officials about who had been responsible, you would have received the usual response: “Not us!” Earlier this year a couple of…

First came a three-month ban, imposed in mid-January, on bauxite mining in Pahang. Then in mid-April came another three-month extension to the ban. Now comes another two-month extension to the three-month extension, expanding the ban until September 15. And a good thing too, all things considered. The moratorium on bauxite…

Come June 15, bauxite mining will resume in Pahang. Or maybe not. The federal government is mulling extending the temporary ban further still to allow more time for operators and state officials to comply with more rigorous rules and regulations. Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are being currently designed and…

A basic principle of economics is supply and demand. When there is demand for a product, someone will be willing to supply it. At what cost to the environment that demand is met, however, is another matter altogether. And so it has proved with the mining of bauxite in Pahang….

Cultivating banana trees, oil palms, cassava roots and lemongrass may not seem like a big deal, seeing as all these tropical crops are commonly grown across Malaysia. Except that Surin Deris, a farmer in Kuantan, is doing so in soil that was extensively damaged last year by bauxite mining, which…

By Dr Helena Varkkey, University of Malaya You would be forgiven to think that the haze is here to stay. After all, countries in Southeast Asia have been experiencing almost annual haze episodes since the 1980s. And despite increasingly desperate rhetoric from governments, NGOs and the public across the region…

Safer pakamatic lorries will be transporting bauxite on newly designed routes to new safer storage sites for stockpiles. The routes will avoid heavily populated residential areas and lorry drivers will be required to abide by load limits to avoid spillage en route. The authorities in Pahang have been talking up…

Malaysian politicians aren’t exactly renowned for taking responsibility. They are, however, prone to occasional bouts of candor. It was during such a moment that Prime Minister Najib Razak owned up to his government’s failure to prevent the environmental calamity caused by rampant bauxite mining in Pahang. “Of course, sometimes we…

Let’s breathe a sigh of relief: the three-month ban on bauxite mining in Pahang, which was scheduled to expire on April 15, has been extended for another three months. “It is important for us to safeguard the environment,” Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, minister of Natural Resources and Environment, noted after…

As the three-month moratorium on bauxite mining is nearing its end, Pahang’s government is scrambling to repair its image. When the extent of harm to Kuantan’s  environment – water, soil, air – became widely known, the state’s Menteri Besar Adnan Yaakob ended up with plenty of egg on his face….

As slap-downs go, this one is right up there. Bauxite miners in Kuantan, whose helter-skelter activities have inflicted grave damage on the local environment, and locals who have enabled them by leasing out their land are at heart – wait for it – just too lazy to make an honest…

Three months always seemed like precious little enough time for a ban on bauxite mining in Pahang, given the extent of environmental pollution in Kuantan. Malaysian environmentalists have been calling for an extension to the government-imposed moratorium, which is scheduled to expire on April 15, and they may yet get…

We’re more than two months into a three-month moratorium on bauxite mining in Pahang, but not all is well around Kuantan. Stockpiles of the aluminum ore at Kuantan Port, for instance, have yet to be fully cleaned up. And that’s just at the Port. For months on end a thick…

Uncle Woon, an elderly villager in Pahang, wanted to give vent to his ire over the havoc that local bauxite miners have wreaked on his home state’s environment. So one recent morning the 73-year-old set out on a 35km walk from bauxite-ravaged Kuantan to his hometown of Gambang as part…

Insects play an important role in ecosystems with plants relying on the wee critters to facilitate their reproduction through pollination. Their bodies are naturally designed to carry pollen far and wide, thereby fertilizing diverse kinds of plants while they forage for nectar. Among the plants that insects help pollinate are oil…