With all the political drama and uncertainty happening right now, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that a living library of two million rainforests trees is being bulldozed to the ground.
According to Malay Mail, this national treasure was part of a lifelong and painstaking reforestation project led by a 84-year-old James Kingham, who planted the whole forest in an area of 200 acres with 1,200 species of rare forest trees.
Photos via Facebook (Jules Ong)
The Tunas Harapan forest in Tanjung Malim, Perak has over 1,200 rare and endemic (native plants that’s restricted to a certain space) species. These rare species are also endangered.
Jason Kingham is a retired planter who collected these species with the help of the Orang Asli and also park rangers and later grew them in polybags.
A Kuala Lumpur-based journalist and documentary filmmaker, Jules Ong took to his Facebook account to highlight the issue and has since gone viral with over hundreds of comments from concerned people.
“Say we have a large collection of manuscripts in a library - a national treasure! Now they are burning in the library!” Jules said in his Facebook post.
“No doubt James can’t fight for the land rights, but the forest trees does not belong to the new owner or developer. It is a national heritage that belongs to Malaysians and to humanity!”
James’ annual lease on the land was not renewed, the state land was sold to new owners who are bulldozing everything in sight.
This rainforest could’ve possibly the largest rainforest nursery in Asia, even FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia) even visited the forests for its diverse collection of seedlings.
Jules even made a petition which aims to protect the largest rainforest nursery in Malaysia - even the smallest action can make a huge difference!
By: Aishah Akashah Ahadiat
