Wednesday June 11, 2008
By Clara Chooi
CAMERON HIGHLANDS: The landowner responsible for the hill cutting in Brinchang will take immediate remedial measures to prevent soil erosion.
Big Red Strawberry farm owner S. Kumar said he had fitted two outlets to the silt trap ponds, and covered up several dangerous slopes with tarpaulin.
He would be working closely with the Department of Environment and the Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) to ensure that extension work on the family farm would not harm the environment or pose a danger to those in the surrounding areas.
“We are willing to adhere to the guidelines imposed, and we had no intention of causing danger during the land clearing,” he said yesterday after officers from the two departments and the Pahang Forestry Department visited his farm following reports of hill cutting at the site.
Remedial measure: Big Red Strawberry Farm has prepared silt trap ponds to prevent soil erosion at the farm in Brinchang, Cameron Highlands.
“We built silt traps, but they were not enough. We also take responsibility for mistakenly cutting the slopes too steep, past the 25° gradient,” he said. “To remedy that, we will terrace the hill,” he said.
He added that a 3m buffer zone had been allocated along the perimeter of the affected hill and that the steep slopes would soon be re-turfed to prevent soil erosion.
Kumar, however, cried foul over allegations that land clearing works covered more than 10ha and had damaged a primary forest.
“We only applied to clear 0.8ha of the land to expand our farm and not 10ha as claimed.”
Kumar noted that the family had held a Temporary Occupational Licence on the 4ha site for 40 years now. His family had only used 1.6ha of the 4ha site and had only decided to expand the farm recently.
“Everything we did was legal and we have no reason to want to damage the environment in any way,” he said.
A Forestry Department officer confirmed that the cleared land was not part of a primary forest.
“It is a secondary forest,” he said. -- The Star.
