Malaysia has fairly strong environmental laws that prescribe harsh penalties for wildlife trafficking and other nefarious crimes against the environment. Yet these activities, including wildlife trafficking, continue to persist around the nation. Why is that? For one thing, laws are routinely left unenforced and culprits are let off the hook…
Forestry officials are our eyes in forests. They are tasked with keeping an eye on logging to ensure that no illegal activity takes places in the country’s much-depleted forests. But what happens when the eyes of these officials are willfully blind to such logging? What happens is this: loggers can…
Scores of factories may be operating illegally on the island of Penang. That’s bad enough. What’s worse is that some of those factories may have been causing considerable harm to the environment. A case in point is a carbon filter-processing factory in Kampung Sungai Lembu, where it has reportedly been operating…
At last Malaysian authorities are stepping up their efforts to clamp down on illegal bauxite mining in Pahang. A few days ago the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) arrested a senior Customs officer and nine officials from the Pahang Land and Mineral Office (PTG) for allegedly abetting miners in their illegal…
Corruption is a blight on the environment. It undermines rule of law, aids a culture of impunity and corrodes trust in the authorities. Malaysia is a country with high levels of endemic corruption so it’s no surprise that it is also facing a variety of acute environmental problems. But there’s always…