KUALA LUMPUR: Forty-five non-governmental organisations (NGOs) urged the federal and Pahang governments to launch independent inquiries on the massive mudflows and log slides that had occurred in Karak, Bentong recently.
In a joint statement today, the NGOs said there should be cohesive and coordinated efforts between the two governments to identify and penalise the culprit behind the disaster that had claimed more than 10 lives.
It is crucial, they said, for the inquiries to take place as it could identify the disasters' root cause.
This would allow for immediate and medium-term actions to be recommended, including damage repair and preventing future recurrence, they said.
The 45 NGOs which issued the statement include Alliance of River Three, Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), Centre for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC), Global Environment Centre, Klima Action Malaysia association (KAMY), Malaysian Nature Society (Pahang branch) and Global Water Partnership.
The NGOs believe that there is a dire need for a more holistic approach towards flood prevention, mitigation and preparedness in disaster management.
"The government should impose an immediate moratorium on any further approval for forests clearance and sloping land in Bentong.
"Any ongoing logging or land cleaning operations should be halted, pending the proposed inquiry outcomes," said the joint statement, today.
The government, said the NGOs, should undertake an immediate review of compliance with forestry, environmental and land management regulations by respective landowners and managers in Bentong.
"This is to ensure that swift action is taken to bring any party that breached the regulations to justice and provide appropriate compensation to impacted communities".
Though climate change has been identified as one of the contributing factors, the NGOs said, there are other possible factors that warrant thorough immediate investigation and action.
"This includes checking on possible weak systemic issues on existing infrastructural and support mechanisms, as well as investigating extensive logging and clearance of forests at steep hills along with the main range and completely inadequate erosion and sediment controls in these developments.
"It also must include looking into the possible lack of flood warning and also monitoring conducted over the time".
The statement said some NGOs together with local communities have been protesting the logging and land clearing activities near Sungai Gapoi and Sungai Telemong in Karak, since September 2020.
"The activities posed a high risk to water supply, safety and environmentally sensitive areas.
"Hence, we strongly believe that the main factors behind the recent catastrophe were the widespread logging and land clearing in hilly areas.
"It could also be due to lack of proper erosion controls, flood warning measures and lack of monitoring and enforcement; combined with the heavy rainfall."
The NGOs suggested for the government to establish effective forest and river catchment conservation and restoration action plans or policies responses at the town, district and state levels.
"The government should also develop and implement Integrated River Basin Management Plan for all river basins in the country.
"This is to avoid development in floodplains, lowland areas, river reserves, wetlands and peatland areas to act to retain excess water and reduce floods.
"An integrated fast and effective monitoring system should also be developed and established as well as an information dissemination system to enhance and alert the public at the earliest possible on any disaster".
The NGOs said large-scale logging and forest clearance activities for durian and forest plantations have been taking place in recent years.
"Many developments have been undertaken without Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and little or no environmental mitigation and control measures in place.
"Forest clearing has been undertaken on steep slopes without erosion control measures and river buffer zones have been cleared completely and planted," said the statement.