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GEORGE TOWN: The top of a 350-meter-high hill in Penang has been illegally cleared for durian farming, and the owners ignored three orders to stop working since March, the city council said today.
Wandering landowners have cleared the hill 150m down from the top into a park, with concrete paved paths wide enough to accommodate two cars, with young durian trees and fruit dotting the outlines of the hills.
At the top, a total of 16 hectares of land had been cleared, or about the size of 15 football fields.
It is 10 times the infamous Bukit Botak clearing in 2013, which happened to be on the same mountain range, but in a different location.
The Penang Island City Council (MBPP) said the landowners planned to establish a fruit farm there.
MBPP said work began earlier this year, peaking at the beginning of the motion control order. A notice to stop work was first issued in March, and two others were issued in July, but these were ignored, she said.
The FMT had previously reported the arrest of eight workers at the site for violating the MCO in April.
Work stops after 24-hour checks by MBPP
MBPP, in a site visit today, revealed that work was finally stopped after council officials went into service 24 hours a day starting Aug. 24.
City council engineering department director Rajendran P Anthony said the owners submitted a planning permit application on Sept. 1.
Rajendran said the earthworks were carried out illegally and the council had yet to consider what to do with the built site.
“Any earthworks need prior permission from the council.”
He said the same owners were fined 10,000 RM in 2015 for illegally cleaning a different part of Bukit Relau, not far from the current site.
“We will soon initiate a legal claim against the landowners,” he said.
Checks conducted today by FMT showed that the site was adjacent to the infamous Bukit Relau, or the “Bukit Botak” site from 2013, which was illegally cleared that year.
While the 2013 Bukit Botak was directly visible to motorists from the Penang Bridge, the newly cleared site was hidden from view as it was behind the previous cut hill in front of Paya Terubong.
In April, the Department of the Environment found evidence of open burning at the site, with trees felled and other litter set ablaze, believed to have been carried out by those clearing the site.
The site can be accessed via the Ashley Green housing area in Bukit Gambier, with an unpaved road at one end leading to a gravel driveway. From the shoulder of the hill, a 30-foot-wide concrete road has been paved about one kilometer to the top.
A Penang government source told the FMT that the farmers were on the top of the hill during the MCO because they believed they had the approval of the state agriculture department.
“When the police caught them, the owners of the farm showed letters in which they said they had authorization to carry out agricultural activities,” said the government official.
Approval obtained from the Ministry of Agriculture?
The owners are also believed to have claimed they had permission for agricultural activities from a federal ministry.
In April, FMT reported that two letters, including one from the Southwest District Agricultural Office, dated February 20, said that durian farmers wanted to plant “various types of cloned premium durian varieties” on two plots of land there.
The letter, signed by an agricultural official, said that farmers were free to carry out planting activities as long as they complied with the established rules of “planting durian on slopes”.
The other letter, allegedly from an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries, dated March 22, granted an “exemption” to farmers to perform work under the MCO, as they were part of the “food supply chain.” .
A Penang government source said that durian farms were allowed above 76m (mountain land) under the Penang Structure Plan (PSP) or the state’s urban planning plan.
Penang Hills Watch had said that land clearing on the hill had started as early as 2013, with access roads to the site built over the years.
He said MBPP told him that the land clearing was not approved and that a warning letter was sent to the owner regarding “mitigation works” in September 2013.
He also said that a new clearing, covering 7ha, had been discovered near the first site.
