Malaysia is located outside the Ring of Fire, an area known for earthquakes and volcanic activities.
Despite the country's rapid industrialisation, it is still covered with rainforests and overflowed with lifelines of ground and river water.
Unfortunately, some citizens have shown a disregard for the environment by littering as if the nation is a landfill and by dumping trash and toxins into our rivers.
Not only are our rivers and shores choked in consumer and industrial refuse, they are silted and contaminated, terrible outcomes of unmitigated construction booms, sand mining and riverside factories' waste dump.
Our rivers' prognosis is appalling: five per cent of river basins are severely polluted and 42 per cent are polluted, leaving 53 per cent of fresh water sources clean.
As reported by the Maritime Institute of Malaysia in its 2023 Global Environment Centre study of Malaysian rivers, polluted rivers taint the seas and oceans. As a result, we may be eating contaminated fish and drinking groundwater and bathing in rivers seeped in hazardous chemicals. Granted, conserving city rivers is complex and complicated. Case in point: Paris.
France struggled to purify the polluted Seine River, the venue for certain aquatic events during the Paris Olympics, even after allocating US$1.5 billion for an aggressive clean-up. Because the river had become a combined sewer system where waste and storm water flow through the same pipes, swimmers felt the adverse effects of E. coli or other bacteria.
Regrettably, Malaysia's river conservation strategy has been to resort to regular post-pollution clean-ups instead of instituting preventive measures. While we attempted to transform city rivers into sightseeing and boat canals, the waters would emit a rancid odour because some parts were sewage dumps. River-cleaning and enforcement efforts belie the unsustainable conservation strategy that capitulates to extreme pollution.
Root causes were still ignored in spite of endless clean-up projects and extravagant "Love Our River" campaigns producing unrealistic results. The trash-throwing and toxin-dumping mentality persisted, numbed to the fact that if people continued to ravage their rivers, the trash, toxins and bacteria would rebound to spook the polluters.
Perplexingly, the authorities avoided tackling the root causes, despite data pointing to conservation as a budget-friendly anti-pollution initiative. Yet, more hopeless campaigns, enforcement and stringent laws followed up. Here's a pragmatic, if not implausible, ploy to save our rivers: mandate a Covid-19-like Movement Control Order (MCO) that confines polluters to their homes.
Stunningly, the pandemic did produce a dream scenario: exotic fish, reptiles, birds and otters hung out in and around "cleansed" city rivers.
Wistfully, it proved to be a one-time offer valid only during the MCO. In case you didn't notice, the exotic animals haven't reappeared after the MCO was lifted.