SARAWAK FUTURE DAMS & DEFORESTATION

Al Jazeera (the 24-hour English-language news and current affairs channel, is headquartered in Doha, the capital of Qatar) reports of Sarawak in its 101 East programme. Sarawak plans to build 12 more new dams in the future, which could make it the state with the most dams in the world.

The 12 dams are possibly projects under SCORE (The Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy). Check out the articles about Green dams hasten rape of Borneo Forests in Times Online and Borneo's Rainforest in National Geographic as well as the photographs. There is also a satellite image of comparison between the current and the past state of the Borneo landscape which is in the printed version. I will try to find time to scan and share with everyone here.

My personal view? The island of Borneo has the world's oldest rainforests (earth's oldest tropical rain forest--about 70 to 100 million years old), with over 8,000 species of flowering plants, including some 2,000 species of trees, 200 odd palms and more than 800 varieties of orchids. If all these dams will be threatening these ancient natural treasures and natural ecosystem, do you think I will agree? Check a quote in one of the articles highlighted above:
"Critics argue that Sarawak does not need more electricity. It produces a 20% surplus and there is as yet no cable to deliver power to peninsular Malaysia – which itself generates more energy than it needs."