The Penang state government has appointed Tengku Idaura Tengku Ibrahim as Chief Controller of the Botanic Garden in a move seen as a positive development after months of wrangling over controversial ‘upgrading’ projects.
Victoria Amazonica lilies at Kew Garden: One suggestion is for the dug-up area between the two soon-to-be-demolished arches at the PBG to be converted into a large pond for giant water lilies and other water-based plants
The present Director of the garden, Nor Wahida Hassan, is expected to report to the new Chief Controller, who will in turn report to the Chief Minister and the State Secretary.
In recent months, the Botanic Garden has hit the news for all the wrong reasons after ill-conceived federally-funded ‘upgrading’ projects marred the lush garden surroundings.
The last straw was the debacle over the ‘Leaning Arch of Penang’. Opinion polls showed that a large majority of the public wanted both the monstrous arches to come down.
The Garden has also been the focal point of bitter disputes and confusing jurisdictions between federal and state in terms of management of the garden, appointments of key personnel, and funding for projects.
Several activists have already welcomed Tengku Idaura’s appointment, under a contract. She is the past president of the Friends of the Penang Botanic Garden Society, ex-council member of the Penang Heritage Trust and retired deputy general manager of the Penang Development Corporation. She is also on the steering committee of the Penang Forum, a coalition of Penang-based civil society groups.
”It is the first step in the right direction and we will all be there to support her in her very difficult task of cleaning up the mess,” said one civil society activist.
Her appointment could lead to other experts chipping in to volunteer their time and energy to restore the Garden to its past glory.
Here are Tengku Idaura’s comments from a Star report dated 30 May:
FOPBGS vice-president Datuk Tengku Idaura Tengku Ibrahim reminisces about the “good old days” when the Gardens evoked a “sense of calmness and tranquillity”.
“It was so cool then – the trees were large and shady, and in much better shape. Now they are dying, slowly withering away because of poor maintenance.
“We used to have a fantastic collection of flora and fauna but these have depleted through the years. Every time we have some money to spare, we use it to build something and the plants are neglected.”
This passionate environmentalist says it is important to enrich what we have by replacing the trees that have died and developing new areas of the Gardens.
“The road leading up to Penang Hill needs to be realigned to the Penang Municipal Park nearby. We can have a multi-storey car park there without disturbing the Gardens. Local plants must be brought back and given priority rather than those that are not native to Malaysia.
“It’s not that we are not appreciative of allocations from the federal government. We welcome it but the money must be used properly and in line with the original purpose of the Gardens,” Tengku Idaura adds.
Years ago, the NGOs lost a battle to prevent this replica of the Penang Bridge from being built in the Gardens.Members of FOPBGS, set up 15 years ago, worry that the green lung will be turned into an “artificial landscape park”. They claim that the older generation now refuse to visit the Gardens because they see it as a “desecration”.
Tengku Idaura says at least half the number of visitors to the Gardens today are youngsters, who view it as a park for jogging.
“You can’t blame them because we are so lacking in open spaces these days. But it’s important to remember that the Penang Botanic Gardens is among the most unique in the world because of its location.
“It is so much more than a park – it’s a natural rainforest for scientific research and education. It’s rare to find a natural rainforest just minutes away from the city. We need a lot of money and a comprehensive, eco-sensitive Master Plan (to be) put in place, but the Penang Botanic Gardens can be of international standard.
“Gaudy decorations like hanging pots, stone lions, huge clocks and animals in cages will only mar the place. The public can contribute by adopting the trees and plants,” she suggests.
Some parting words from Dr Liew Kon Wui, a former professor of biological science in USM, in the same Star report:
Dr Liew adds that it’s better to have no development than bad development.
“There are three things Penangites hold very dear – Penang Hill, the Batu Ferringhi beaches and the Botanic Gardens. For the Gardens, all we want is to go back to what was envisioned by its first Malaysian curator, Cheang Kok Choy.”
In an article titled How the Penang Botanic Gardens Survived the War, Cheang wrote:
“The pre-war policy of the Gardens Committee of Management, with the British Resident Councillor as Chairman, was to preserve the aesthetic values of the Gardens in harmony with the unique natural landscape. All signboards, concrete or wooden structures, garden seats and plant houses which tend to betray it as an artificial or a man-made garden were kept to an absolute minimum. If such items were considered very necessary, every effort would be made to camouflage or obscure them.”
Does the botanical gardens have any full-time botanists working there? Perhaps that’s where the money could be better spent. You can’t have a garden without gardeners!
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Exactly. I think the PBG has only one trained (and inexperienced) botanist, whereas at the Singapore Botanic Garden, they have a whole team of them.
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Hi Anil,
If only PBG is willing to take in more Botanists, I will be first to do so, many forestry students are not working in their field of study at all..
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Is there no scope for volunteering? Many biology/ecology/environmental graduates in the UK start their careers that way. Perhaps Tengku Idaura could identify some small projects that could be established by volunteers. I’d worry otherwise that there might be something of a chicken-and-egg situation: the place will be no good without the right people and the right people won’t want to work there because the place is not the best.
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Why not benchmark the success of Singapore Botanical Garden?
Even Andre Bocelli had a concert there, sponsored by a malaysian tycoon who chose not to contribute to malaysia.
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Don’t forget Indonesia’s Bogor Botanical Garden near Jakarta that consistently wins praise from modern writers of travel, botany, and lifestyle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogor_Botanical_Gardens
The Penang, Singapore, and Indonesian botanical gardens were established around the same time for the same purpose of developing agricultural economics (still important today, plus the additional issue of ecological sustainability).
But the Penang garden is the one that keeps going down hill, like its port, free trade, FDI, public transport, and many aspects.
It is good that the unworkable federal-state tug of control and resources are coming to the surface. So many of Penang’s problems stem from this source.
Anil, it is also good that in the past year you have focused more and written more explicitly on the federal-state struggles. People need to wake up. This is a federation, not communist or fascist central-command country. Or would it be if we allow it?
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How about a botanical library for research purpose.
Maybe even a digital photolibrary of plants, flowers and trees.
Photographers can also chip in to the library. And make it available online.
At the moment, there are too many concretes (eg the ugly concrete gazebos being built) which should be minimized. And the gazebos’ cement and sand spills on the grass leaving sand/cement patches which make grass rehabilitation doubtful.
No environmental consideration on the part of the contractors.
Nowadays, you can hardly see groups of monkeys. Where have they gone?
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I was going to suggest they work on and publish their own field guide. I haven’t seen a good one since I came to Malaysia. I guess if they’re as short-staffed as Anil says, that’s not a likely venture.
Perhaps USM or someone could send over Huey, Dewey and Louie and we could take it in turns to operate them? I just fancy a bit of Joan Baez:
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Monkeys, They are gone!… when ‘humans…” came to disrupt their habitat…Arches, huh!
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Anil,
How can you compared Singapore to Bolehland!
Our dollar used to worth twice as much as theirs, now it is just the opposite…give you any indication?
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last sunday i visit the contractor is using soil contaminated with debris as base for the turfs.in normal situation they should using good topsoils.
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I found Penang Botanical Gardens is more like a child playground compared to Sri Lanka’s Kandy Botanical Garden.
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Hi everyone,
Can we revisit the issue of the replica of Pg Bridge that is still standing in the Gardens? This structure does not enhance the serenity of the Gardens, on the contrary it’s rather out-of-sync with the natural ‘goodness’ of its surroundings. Would the Garden authorities consider taking-down this structure, maybe, replacing it with a wooden bridge or rope-bridge?
Congrats to Tengku Idaura on her appointment. Hope that the Ministry of Tourism and other federal ministries/agencies would liase with her when planning projects for the Botanical Gardens, which is a natural asset to Pg and Malaysia.
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Botanical Gardens:
The perfect person to get professional advice is Mr. James Kingham, planter/environmentalist who keeps a beautiful forest in Tanjong Malim. He is honest, sincere and loves the forest deeply that he laboured without anyone’s help to preserve lots of rare species of trees over a period of 15-20 years. Truly a man worthy of respect and a genuine Malaysian. The fact that his staff love him to bits and have worked for him for 30-40 years speaks volumes about this wonderful personality. Refer to the Star of previous years for more details.
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He certainly sounds like a interesting fellow!
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AAs-mu1SnA0J:property.simedarby.com/thewindow/arc/2008june-july/pdf/OurGreenHeros.pdf+james+kingham+penang&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=ubuntu
Can anybody find the original version of this document? I’ll do what’s necessary to add it to the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine if someone can link to the PDF.
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Hi Pearl and everyone,
It is not that the Malaysian authorities are not aware of the successes of planning and implementation of projects by the Singapore Govt. It is more of planning so well by M’sian Federal Govt that seemingly there is mismanagement, which facilitate cost-overun, leakages, etc, to benefit the political elites and their cronies! They may conveniently let us think that there is lack of brains, but I would venture to say that such a poise is to facilitate maximising the ‘loot’ from direct negotiations projects, privatised projects, a blatant ‘robbery’ of taxpayers funds.
In the Kg Buah Pala case, the political eunuch KTK and his fellow conspirators in the previous St Govt planned so well, with intent?, in transferring land ownership to the Cooperative so much so that the High Court judgement rules that the Cooperative is the ‘rightful’ land owner, not able to reverse the title deed to the original ‘trustees’ of the land!
Now, with the withdrawal and reduction of subsidies, the coffers of the Federal Govt is increased, the political vultures out there are already waiting in gleeful expectation of more and more riches! Make hay while the sun shines, for come the next 13GE, circumstances may not be that favourable anymore!!
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Hi Anil,
The issue of the arches at Botanical Gardens is only one example of the whole issue of Federal-State relationship in Msia. First and foremost, Malaysia is a Federation of States – just like the United States. By that, I would imagine that each State has overall authority over most of their own affairs … and the affairs of a Botanical Gardens is surely something that can be, and must be, solely under the purview of the State ! Surely it must be the responsibility of the Federal Govt to provide sufficient funds to each State according to some pre-agreed formula, and each State must also manage its own financial affairs and raise funds on its own accord. At the end of the day, the Tourism Ministry should have no business getting involved in the Botanical Gardens. At most, it should provide the funding if it so wishes but it should not be trying to decide what it wants to do. Rather, the people of Penang should decide what it wants to do with the Gardens. Similarly for other areas like sand-mining. The people of Penang has voted for a State Govt of their choice and it is the right of the people of Penang to demand that the Federal Govt STAY OUT of State affairs, and it is the right of Penang voters to demand that the … state assembly passes a law that requires all state positions to be filled by State appointees. This is a rightful expression of the wishes of the people as per the outcome of Mar 08.
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The Botanic Garden arches did not spring up from the ground. It is part of the BN-Umno’s mentality of wasting scarce national resources on building monuments. The Botanic fiasco has cost the people RM150,000. It is right and proper for Lim Guan Eng to hold Nik Ali Mat Yunus responsible as the officer-in-charge in supervising the project.
This episode shows the arrogance and high-handedness of the federal government in ramming its agenda down the throats of the people without any prior consultation, and then disclaiming responsibility and blaming others for the problems.
Nik Ali deserves to be publicly reprimanded for his unbecoming conduct as a civil servant siding with Umno.
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Just to add on the issue of lack of botanists in the country, in the course of work, met a retired botanist and town planner, a few years ago and they revealed that Malaysia virtually has no botanists at all.
Apparently, it doesn’t have any properly trained town planners from recognised institutions either. You will be to confirm this.
Interesting why there is a vacuum in these fields; given environment and development are issues that we are confronted with constantly.
Instead, of giving scholarships to students who are adamant about doing medicine, a discipline that is likely to be less in demand in the not too distant future, hope those in power are thinking along these lines – to train more botanists, town planners and the like.
Only heaven knows who the town planner was for the area right next to Sri Hartamas, Jalan Dungun in Damansara, and the bungalows on the hills (once a forest reserve) behind Travers Police Station in KL!?
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There’s a lack of Malaysian botanists because they are in S’pore and working for NParks
For the past 30 years, i have seen the growing disparity between how our two countries are managed and developed. Education system seems to be the key. Set high standards, end up with competent people. The state of the Pg Botanic Gardens today is but a sad reflection of how things are planned and carried out in the greater scheme of things here. Malaysia boleh…yada yada…
Actually there are capable people around, but they were discouraged and fed up with the bureaucracy. It’s not that they didn’t give feedback. But got listen meh? Aiya…so much potential but end up like this. What we see today, is the accumulated negligence in the past. The future begins today.
Anyway, this way forward i hope. All the best to Tengku! Hopefully Penangnites will rise up and also support this endeavour.
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It is a well known fact why right-minded people in Malaysia would prefer to work and live in Singapore.
So much talk on brain drain but have you ever see the bn government do anythign to arrest the trend?
Instead, they choose to replace the outflow with the brains from Indonesia.
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Hi Tan Of Tanjong Bungah,
Your comment reminds me of the Adorna case. Land fraudulently sold to a developer and judge made his judgement in favour of the developer when the original owner tried to claim back the land. I don’t know what is the status now.
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Tungku Udaura’s comment is like a breath of fresh air this Garden needs. Where were you all these years?
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It’s heartening to read the comments about the Penang Botanic Gardens.
After working here for 7 days, I feel downright discouraged at the volume of tasks ahead of me.
Most of all, can I remove all the unneccesary structures which the officials would declare as “structurally sound” and therefore…
Then where are the brains and the brawn ? There’s not a single botanist although there’s a Botany Unit made of clerical staff trying their best at identifying and classifying plants.
So, guys who want to volunteer please come forward.
As for the brawn, the garden has expanded 8-fold from 72 to 592 acres, and the staff number remain the same,while 26% of them are assigned to maintain the State’s VIP’s gardens.
Any gardening volunteers ? We surely need you here.
Several regular walkers stop to talk to me after noticing that I’m a “regular”. I’m really glad that theyshare the same ideals.
Thanks for wishing me luck.
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