A CAPER OF CABBAGES AND KANGKUNG

WHAT has the price of kangkung got to do with the calamity that struck Cameron Highlands last week?

The answer is mud – glorious mud; lots of it, washed down by a tidal wave of water due to the predictably regular; seasonal heavy rains.

This calamitous deluge was the result of the reservoir holding back water in the Highlands catchment area having reached maximum capacity and the excess released. In doing so, the lower reaches became inundated.

Far from merely flooding out its riverine denizens, the watery surge brought down with it a torrent of muddy slush. It carried with it a mother load of debris, tonnes of gunk and plastic bags filled with all manner of rubbish. Woe betide anyone standing in its way!

Geographically, it was not meant to be like this. When water rushes down a valley from the highlands; it brings with it all golden silt laden with nutrition with each wave.

Communities through the ages have always chosen to set up settlements by river banks. The river forms a logical and convenient artery for transportation and indeed, support life itself.

LESSON IN TOPOGRAPHY

In the topographical scheme of things, flood plains are just that. Water always finds its level; flowing down from the highlands beginning with tiny rivulets, joining up with fingers of tributaries before merging into some huge river before emptying into the sea.

With that bit of hydrological enlightenment out of the way, let us get back to life by the riverbanks.

Take a drive on Jalan Syed Putra towards the city and steal a sideways glance on the riverbanks of the Sungai Klang all the way from Jalan Klang Lama to the junction of Jalan Mahameru.

You would notice patches of shiny green vegetation thriving on either side of the river bank. On closer inspection you would be able to identify the leafy tendrils of the humble kangkung.

You would also notice that this patch of green;not unlike some city agricultural allotment is transient in nature – this month you see it, the previous month it was not there!

There’s not quite the need to consult any agro-engineer to tell you the secret of this riverside leafy colonisation. The agricultural miracle is built on a bed of slime and sludge, nourished by muddy silt deposited by each ebb and flow after each bout of heavy rains.

Why kangkung? City folk are wont to toss all manner of household garbage, including kitchen waste; including the discarded roots of the kangkung leaf. Hardy vege that it is, any section of the root with even the most tiny eyelet suggesting biological potential tossed away is akin to planting the seeds of nature’s bounty.

Easy to sow, ignore it and simply let it grow. Within a matter of weeks you’d have a whole bed ready to reap.

So with that rather roundabout way of explaining the connection between floods and thriving kangkung; one should have no trouble then to understand the travails of our highland friends.

THE RAPE OF CAMERONS

Opened up by the British colonialists way back when; it was never envisaged that carving out well-ordered tea terraces could pave the way for unfettered rape of the hills – which is the only explanation for the unforgivable scarring of Cameron Highlands.

It appears the hill’s every available slope and ridge had been cut and grated, levelled and shaved (and you see much of the same on either side of the Karak Highway from Gombak to Bentong) to make way for commercial agricultural exploitation.

Camerons once boasted some of the most fertile agricultural plots the nation has to offer. But unbroken cycles of planting and harvesting with no allowance for the dirt to lie a while in regenerative fallow took its toll.

Evidence of this? Just look at the tell-tales stacks of fertiliser dumped by the roadside!

Surely, if the land is still fertile, there is no need for pots of potassium to coax the land to yield what is still prodigious amounts of Camerons agricultural produce?

Environmentalists have pointed out the dangers of chemicals tainting Camerons water courses as the fertilisers leach out. We do not need to mention the deleterious effects of too much chemical intervention that land on our dinner tables once the harvest is brought to market!

So we reap as we sow. The unfettered opening up of Cameron’s land for farming; legally and illegally; is the initial explanation for the reason for the flooding.

As usual, after the public outcry followed the official handwringing.

MR MINISTER, WHAT SAY YOU?

All the relevant ministers, administrators and enforcers have come forward to issue all manner of recriminating edicts.

In the immediate aftermath, it was the band of foreign workers who became everyone’s whipping boy. They were the target for opprobrium, ostensibly for being responsible for widespread illegal farming. They were rounded up and herded away; perhaps for illegal entry.

For Cameronians and visitors to the hill resort, they have seen a gradual transformation of their landscape with more and more pocket land being farmed. The local farmers have largely disappeared and it is left to the foreigners to till and toil on the land. It remains to be seen if the locals had sold out their plots or if the foreigners simply staked their spots by the river without license.

The response have been typically swift – threatening words greeted by a huge dollop of public scepticism.

The local MP typically begged for another RM40 million – to deepen the silted up river! Little has been heard from him since; incongruously it must be said as he is the minister responsible for care of the environment.

We have heard it all before and been there; haven’t we?

Until such words are translated into action; we might as well tend to the kangkung right here at our doorstep!.