Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Tasik Chini Research Centre head Prof Datuk Dr Mushrifah Idris

Sunday January 29, 2012
Preserving Tasik Chini
THERE is a need to preserve Tasik Chini and carry out research work there in the light of the rapid pace of development including palm oil cultivation and mining in the area that can have an adverse impact on the lake.
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Tasik Chini Research Centre head Prof Datuk Dr Mushrifah Idris is determined to ensure the lake is preserved and supported to avoid its extinction like Tasik Mentiga which had dried up and disappeared from the map.

Prof Mushrifah says research done at the lake is not merely for the benefit of science.

Due to their high prices, heavy metals like manganese and chromium are being mined there.
“We cannot stop people who want to mine for the metals. Our duty is to inform them on ways to reduce erosion.
“There are currently not that many people doing research on our lakes. We now have only two natural lakes left in the country which are Tasik Bera and Tasik Chini,” said Prof Mushrifah who is a recipient of Malaysia’s UNESCO Day Award 2011.
She said all the other natural lakes have already disappeared.
“Lakes also age. If it is a natural lake it ages with time .
“And the more it is eroded and followed by sedimentation, the more it will become silted up if no efforts are taken to preserve them,” she said.
Prof Mushrifah who got her first degree from the then Universiti Pertanian Malaysia (now known as Universiti Putra Malaysia) received her PhD from King’s College, London specialising in research on the rate of absorption of heavy metals in plants.
She is also the first Malaysian researcher to receive a UNESCO Fellowship for biotechnology in 1998.
Prof Mushrifah said the Tasik Chini research centre received a RM550,000 Fundamental Research Grant Scheme to upkeep Tasik Chini as one of the lakes under the UNESCO bio-save scheme.
“We regard this as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. Today Malaysia ia among the 100 countries listed in the website ‘men and the biosphere’.
“More than 100 countries are involved. There are many beneficial things that we learned like Good Governance Practices besides helping the state government to manage the lake,” she explained.
Prof Mushrifah said the East Coast Economic Rim provided RM30mil to enable the centre to build a green laboratory in the middle of the jungle beside the lake.
It is part of the Tasik Chini Rehabilitation Project undertaken under the Tasik Chini Development of the East Coast Economic Development Council (ECERDC) where six projects have already been completed.
“The focus now is to build the laboratory. There is always a need for infrastructures.
“We have the scientists, the expertise but what is most needed are equipment and other infrastructures,” she added.
“There is also a need to build up a generation who are more inclined towards the technical fields.
“We in UKM put in extra efforts and funds to upkeep and preserve the areas around Tasik Chini to avoid it becoming another Tasik Mentiga.
“We do not want this to happen again. If we look at the old photographs of Tasik Mentiga it was as big as Tasik Chini but today its all dried up,” she explained.
The research caried out at Tasik Chini is not merely for the benefit of research and science but its findings can be used in other areas including legislating new procedures for preservation.
The centre, she added, has also received RM6mil funding from Petronas to find ways to clean petrochemical sedimentations. — UKM news portal

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