MONTHS after lockdowns began due to the Covid-19 pandemic, enchanting reports surfaced, revealing that Earth's urban areas were healing and welcoming wildlife. Cities saw their polluted waterways improve and green expanses were cleared of interfering humans.
There was practically a "welcome" sign telling animals it was safe to enter urban and concrete jungles. Sighted were dolphins splashing in Venice, rabbits meandering in Christchurch, pumas descending from the Andes, and wild boars and dogs romping in Barcelona and Rajasthan.
Peacocks strolled in Ronda, goats wandered in north Wales, jackals sauntered in Tel Aviv, wild deer hopped in Trincomalee and coyotes prowled near San Francisco's Golden Gate. On Penang Hill, dusky leaf monkeys roamed freely, while wild elephants strolled in Gerik.
Then, out of the blue, a tiger was spotted in Jalan Gua Musang-Jeli near Bukit Meranto in Kelantan. Kelantan's Department of Wildlife and National Parks is on the lookout to return the animal back to its natural habitat to avoid anything untoward.
Dare we dream that the pandemic lockdowns have really healed the environment? Or was this caused by the resumption of the nightmare of habitats being steadily eroded into desolation, aggravated by poaching? The odds for animals are horrible. Last year, the Kelantan government greenlighted a gold mining project the size of 185 football fields in land earmarked as permanent reserve forest.
Conditional land use conversion allowed the 82-year mining concession to proceed, which will affect 40 mammals, 77 birds, 42 reptiles and 16 fish, including many endangered species listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.
In 2020, Malaysia's forest cover was gazetted at 55 per cent, or 18.05 million hectares, of the total land mass, while about 10.68 million hectares have been designated as permanent forest reserves. We are sceptical that these precious hectares will remain intact. Not at the rate of illegal land encroachments and rising demand for new industries, housing, agriculture and timber.
State governments, especially those lean on funds, wilfully encourage exploitation. Research suggests that despite weakened ecosystems, wildlife and marine life can recover by 2050 if there is aggressive intervention. That's a big "if".
The money from land cultivation is seductive — tax revenue, sales and purchase, manufacturing and profits are too tantalising to forego for the sake of the environment.
There must be domestic legislation undergirded by United Nations protocols to preserve the environment, but there's never enough political will. Some political leadership adhere to these protocols on one hand, but blithely ignore them on the other.
We are practically devoid of options or solutions to counter massive land exploitation. Pity the poor animals. Perhaps, to postpone their inevitable extinction, they should appeal to the Wuhan bats to do them another favour.