Development Vs Environment

At the place where I work I was quite sad to see several huge (and I think ancient) trees being cut and uprooted to accomodate yet another development project. I estimate around 30 trees were cut down. That's progress - the good with the bad but its still sad. I was wondering whether they could have accomodated the trees into the landcape and design of the structure coming up.

It brings to mind what one friend told me sometime back about Universiti Utara Malaysia. I ma not sure whether it is true, but during the design phase, the architects/contractors were asked by the then PM, Dr. M, to leave as much of the originial vegetation as intact as possible and build the structures around them. Well! the results are there for us to see. I think UUM is the most "green" and beautiful university in Malaysia.



Also read this in the WWF site (not related to wrestling in any way). As indicated in various newspaper reports, places that had healthy coral reefs and intact mangroves acted as natural buffers and were less badly hit by the tsunami than in other places. This includes the Maldives and Andhra Pradesh, in India.

Now replanting of the mangroves are on full swing in Malaysia and I hope the momentum picks up before we forget and we do tend to forget.