Sorry for making this page for me to rant… but you know I love to rant and whine… so… feel free to drop by to see if there’s any update… 😉
“The best way to improve your golf is to chop down the rainforest… We get too much rain in Sarawak — it stops me playing golf.”
— Amar James Wong, Sarawak’s Minister of Environment and Tourism (and also a timber tycoon), on deforestation and climatic disruption, in January 1988.
“74% of our country is covered by some form of forest cover. This includes rubber and oil palm plantations. You know why I include them? Any ‘stand if trees’ is by definition a forest.”
— Director-General of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, Salleh Mohamed Nor, dismissing allegations that deforestation for commercial purposes is getting out of hand, in April, 1992.
“It is disgraceful that you should be used by adults for the purpose of trying to shame us… The timber industry helps hundreds of thousands of poor people in Malaysia. Are they supposed to remain poor because you want to study tropical animals? If you don’t want us to cut down our forests, tell your father to tell the rich countries like Britain to pay more for the timber they buy from us.”
— Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad’s written reply to a 10-year old English boy, Darrell Abercrombie, who had sent him a letter urging him to stop deforesttion because the boy wanted to study tropical animals in the forest when he grew up. (August 15, 1987)
Note: These 3 quotes are taken from the book “Malaysian Politicians Say the Darndest Things”, compiled by Amir Muhammad, published by Matahari Books, Kuala Lumpur.
So these are the typical Malaysian mindsets… How can we save our own forests with these (dumb) politicians hovering around, making false promises and fake claims, fooling the people by controlling the media? Sometimes it makes people feel tired isn’t it?