NST Leader: Wildlife under siege

New Straits Times

19-05-2025

HUMANS think the planet was created for us alone. We wilfully forget that it is the home of wildlife, too. How else would you explain the roadkill of an elephant calf along the East-West Highway on May 11?
Drivers should know by now that they are passing through a wildlife habitat. It is high time we realised that we are the intruders, not the animals.
There are enough warning signs to alert even motorists with minimal concern for the safety of wild animals. Being humane means caring for all creations.
Those who gave the go-ahead for the 120km highway, cutting through the Royal Belum State Park and the Temengor Forest Reserve — home to elephants, tigers and tapirs — cannot be excused as being ignorant.
Didn't the Public Works Department, as the highway's builders, conduct an environmental assessment prior to construction? Were wildlife crossings not incorporated due to a lack of funds?
Since the government managed to raise RM1.6 billion in the 1970s for the highway, it could have found the money to build enough animal crossings.
The decline of wildlife will have serious repercussions for the country's ecosystem, and for us as well. The Perak Wildlife and National Parks Department has identified 40 such elephant crossing points. Naturally, in an elephant habitat, they have to hunt for food.
Our selfish pursuit of development often overlooks the animals living in our forests. This lack of consideration has only one consequence: the loss of wildlife.
The decline of wildlife will have serious repercussions for the country's ecosystem, and for us as well.
Given the current rate of animal deaths on our roads, this decline is not a distant possibility.
A Bernama report quoted Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad as saying that a total of 2,361 wild animals were killed in collisions with vehicles nationwide between 2020 and May 12 this year.
That's a daily loss of one wild animal! Pahang had the highest number of roadkills with 765 animals, followed by Perak (478), Kelantan (224), Terengganu (201), and Negri Sembilan (187).
The World Wide Fund for Nature Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia) is right: without more interventions — both immediate and long-term — roadkills will only get worse.
For animals, roads and highways are just another part of the forest habitat. But we understand the danger, so it's our responsibility to take the necessary actions to prevent these needless roadkills.
The first is to stop destroying animal habitats. This is crucial because, according to WWF-Malaysia, a 2016 study found that elephant roaming areas had shrunk by 68 per cent due to agriculture, infrastructure and land-use change. The rest comes later.
Habitat loss forces animals to cross roads more often, the WWF-Malaysia says. The organisation reminds us of a basic truth: the forest was theirs long before the roads were ours.
While we are not against development, it must be sustainable — benefiting not only humans, but animals as well. Unsustainable development is not true progress, it is deforestation. Wild animals need their space, just as much as we do.