KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysia Rail Link Sdn Bhd (MRL) has reduced forest land usage by 90 per cent in its East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) mega-rail project.
This was made possible upon a review by environment and social experts, where the original design was said to pass through and alongside important forest and wildlife areas.
ERE Consulting Group Sdn Bhd managing director Dr G. Balamurugan said initially more than 2,000 ha of forest land was estimated to be cleared to make way for the project as per the original design.
However, after design fine-tunes and taking into consideration of its potential environmental and social impact, that figure dropped to only 276 ha of forest land loss.
He said the project's design philosophy was to avoid environment impacts, and to achieve this, the project developer would consider realignment, tunneling, and finally mitigation methods for wildlife crossings.
"For instance, there would be an open cut on the Bukit Bauk forest reserve in Terengganu, a forest rich of wildlife such as the tiger habitats and we resorted to build a tunnel there to conserve the forest and wildlife.
"But the implication was that its (cost) would have gone up by RM30 million. Since it is an important tiger habitat, MRL said, 'okay we can spend that money'.
"Overall, actions to conserve forest and wildlife resulted in 58 tunnels, 128 km of viaducts, and 20 wildlife crossings," he said during a presentation at the MRL Media Appreciation Hi-Tea at Mandarin Oriental here today.
Balamurugan said that MRL evaluated every environmental and social implication of the project.
He said in any case of re-evaluation, trying to divert the route became an option. However, if that was not doable in the event that the realignment would go through Orang Asli villages or other infrastructure, then they can look at tunneling.
"If we divert it and we are not hitting anyone except for few palm trees, we can accept the sacrifice and save the forest.
"Whenever there was an issue, we looked at it one by one in the last four or five years; and that is how we managed to reduce a lot of (forest losses)," he added.
Balamurugan also said the design of the railway tracks also took into consideration climate change.
He said avoiding flood was a major factor taken in the design.
"When the engineers designed the track, they did it based on what they call a one-in-a-hundred-years flood (possibility). That is the standard," he said.
The 665km ECRL is scheduled for completion by December 2026, and it will traverse the east coast states of Kelantan, Terengganu, and Pahang before linking the Klang Valley on the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia.
The mega rail project will significantly cut travel time as a journey from Kota Baru to the Gombak Integrated Transport Terminal (ITT Gombak) will take only about four hours.