NORMA CALID AD AIRE NO
NORMA PRIMARIA DE CALIDAD DE AIRE PARA OZONO (O3)
Biodiversity loss is a global phenomenon which requires action at local levels. This study focused on governance of biodiversity in a federalised system and it provided an opportunity to bring to the forefront ground level perspectives on this complex issue.
Framing the discourse, by analysing the findings from a postcolonial and political ecology framework, three main arguments emerge to explain the issues and the way forward to strengthen biodiversity governance in Peninsular Malaysia.
6.5.1. Government Administration in a postcolonial era: ‘Malaysian hardware, British software!”
The British colonial imprints in the formation of Malaysia are still felt to this day. In forwarding the British interest to curtail communist insurgence after World War II, they had to speed up the independence of Malaya. To appease the Malay Rulers of each state who were against a unitary government (as originally proposed by the British), they suggested a federal system where the State Rulers were given power
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over land and forest. This dichotomy has challenging consequences on biodiversity conservation in the present day Malaysia as emerged from the findings of this study and analysis of secondary data as in Chapter Five. States in fear of losing rights over their land have come up with State laws to manage PAs for example, with very little capacity in terms of manpower and financial resources. The assignment of the bulk of the revenue streams to the federal government in the constitution, give States very little choice but to exploit their natural resources.
The present day government service in Malaysia is very much based on the British template and the ethos of the 1845 Northcote–Trevelyan Report recommendations (Siddique, 2013). The Northcote–Trevelyan Report (1845) recommendations were the foundation to improve the UK civil service including areas colonised during that period (including Malaysia) (Commission, 2012). As a continuity of the colonial legacy since 1904, the Federal Ministries are being staffed at the officers’ level from the Diplomatic and Administrative Service Scheme (PTD) (Poocharoen and Lee, 2013). These officers are well trained in administrative, financial, diplomatic and human resource matters.
The problem lies when they are in a technical/policy section of a Ministry (for example Biodiversity and Forestry Division in NRE) as these officers come from diverse backgrounds and not trained in these technical areas. This poses problems in the effective management of biodiversity at federal level. At state level, usually it’s just one or two officers (PTD scheme – depending on State) at the State Economic Planning Unit in charge for all biodiversity and environment matters. This acute lack of capacity impedes biodiversity management at state level. The system inherited from the British of not having technical experts in policy sections of government (especially at federal ministries and State Economic
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Planning Unit) that deal with technical issues must change. The ‘subject matter expert’ programme introduced recently by the Public Service Department which is clarified in Service Circular 7/2016 dated 20th December 2016, provides an innovative approach that is very much welcomed to address this issues (PSD, 2016).
6.5.2. The 2020 Dream: Socioeconomic development and conservation in a postcolonial era
Malaysia has a vision to be a fully developed nation by 2020. In pursuit of this vision, Malaysia has made much economic progress in the recent years (Rasiah, 2011) but there are states especially in the east of Peninsular Malaysia that are lagging behind (Musa, Nawi and Alias, 2014). For example in 2011, about 8% of the people in Kelantan State were living under the poverty line compared to the national average for the same year of 3.7% (The Star, 2011; Hatta and Ali, 2013). Early mining areas and rubber plantations as well as trading ports were located in west coast where colonial infrastructure development concentrated (Jomo and Hui, 2003). In present day Malaysia, this uneven development poses even more challenges where lesser developed states depend on their forest and natural resources as main revenue streams compared to states in the west coast, which have devastating effects on biodiversity (Saadatkhah et al., 2016).
6.5.3. The way forward: Reforms towards a sustainable development trajectory
A temporal intervention is proposed based on the findings of this study to enhance biodiversity governance in Peninsular Malaysia. In the short term (5 to 10 years), coordination mechanisms between federal and state agencies can be established or
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strengthened. At the same time, at the Federal level, NRE could establish a National Biodiversity Centre (NBC) with technical and policy expertise. The setting up of NBC was agreed at the National Biodiversity-Biotechnology Council (now known as National Biodiversity Council) meeting in 2009 and a blueprint has been produced on the establishment of this centre (FRIM, 2012). Now a task force in NRE has been established to oversee the establishment of this centre. The NBC model can be replicated by the states at a smaller scale, with the assistance of the federal government in terms of funding. A national science-policy platform should also be established under the national biodiversity council to strengthen decision making and policy formulation with regards to biodiversity. The newly proposed ‘subject matter expert’ by the Public Service Department could also serve as an interim measure to retain expertise.
In the medium term (7 to 15 years), laws at state and federal government level could be harmonised. A Co-Federalism approach can be applied to enable better sharing of resources for the management of biodiversity. A similar approach taken by Australia that came up with the EPBC Act, 1999 is also worth examining further to be applied here in Peninsular Malaysia. The approach by Australia as reported in their 4th report to CBD has a win-win situation for not only federal and state governments but also biodiversity conservation. Clear provision for the participation of ILC must be created in PAs (Adams and Hutton, 2007). A national framework on PES and REDD+ is recommended to be in place to enable states to obtain new sources of funding for conservation as described in Chapter Four.
In the long term (12 to 20 years), Malaysia could update its constitution to include biodiversity and environment with clear definitions and be placed in the concurrent list for better buy in by the states. Probably by this time the idea for the
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merger of the forestry and wildlife department as a single agency will be palatable as what has taken place in other countries such as Thailand (MNRE, 2014). Having a clear provision in the constitution will pave the way for a co-federalism approach in biodiversity governance to ensure Malaysia polices and laws on biodiversity can be translated to concrete actions for a sustainable future.
6.6. Conclusion
This study provided insights on the impact of federalism on biodiversity governance in Peninsular Malaysia. The data from the interviews as well as experts seem to have high level of agreement and enable us to triangulate the findings and provided us with a holistic view of the current situation with a plethora of issues as well as recommendations coming from the respondents.
Admittedly this study is not without limitations. Given that this study focused on Peninsular Malaysia which has a federal system of government, our findings may not be applicable to governments with other systems of governance. Nevertheless, this study will be useful for governments with a federal system and this study provides useful empirical information to expand the current literature on biodiversity governance in a federal government setting.
This study will be useful for furthering the theoretical and practical applications of its findings. It adds on the literature of the political ecology framework as well as post-colonial theory in the context of biodiversity governance in a former British colony which is witnessing rapid economic growth, balancing environment and biodiversity concerns with development is a constant challenge as surfaced in this study.
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