Environment

Oil and gas has been discovered at the Adong Kecil West-1 Well, 20km northeast of Miri town.

The well was drilled by JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration (Onshore Sarawak) Ltd, to a depth of 3,170 meter together with joint venture partner Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd.

This was the first onshore discovery after 24 years. The last onshore discovery was Asam Paya Field in 1989, also in Sarawak.

In December 1910, the first oil production was at Miri's First Oil Well known as the Grand Old Lady on top of Canada Hill. The Grand Old Lady produced oil until interrupted by World War II. In that time, it had produced more than 563,484 barrels and was still producing 10 barrels per day at the time. The Grand Old Lady was still managing to produce 3 barrels of oil a day and when it was stopped, and had produced over 650,000 barrels of oil.

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Apparently, in today's news the "Say No to Plastic Bag" campaign conducted by Miri City Council (MCC) in September 2009 through participating supermarkets does not seem to have helped in reducing the total quantity of plastic bags produced by the participating supermarkets.

According to the statistic issued by the City Council, the total amount of plastic bags produced by the participating outlets has actually increased from 1,072,895 pieces in year 2010 to 1,779,406 pieces last year. As of November this year, the number is at 873,847, which seems to indicate a reduction for 2012.

There were also numerous complaints from the public that there were non-participating shopping outlets that had taken advantage of the campaign by charging plastic bags at RM0.20 each for their own profit. The RM0.20 collected for each plastic bag is supposed to go into charity, although there is no detail on this.

In my point of view, they have taken the approach of charging for plastic bags, instead of REDUCING the plastic bags as they should be doing, and this is exactly what will happen as a result!

Here's a small list of suggestions to tackle this problem more effectively:

- Encourage the use of paper bags or biodegradable plastic bags. Restrict plastic bags that are not degradable. Do not charge the bags.

- Encourage local manufacturers to reduce plastic packaging. This will automatically reduce plastic waste from top to bottom. The current system works from the wrong way, bottom up, which the consumers have to bear but not the manufacturers. This is actually very unfair.

- Stop using excuses that plastic bags choking birds or sea turtles because they mistake it for jellyfish - that is another problem altogether. It has everything to do with irresponsible people disposing of their trash in the sea/rivers, and completely unrelated to plastic bags. Fix the root cause - fine the people who liter the rivers and seas!

- What is not recorded is the people buying bundles of plastic bags for their trash. People are actually buying their own plastic bags because they don't get extra plastic bags nowadays. The actual plastic bag count may actually be even higher. In short: problem not solved!

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Save The Piasau Oriental Pied Hornbill

The Oriental Pied Hornbill (Anthracoceros albirostris) is one of eight species found in the state, and here, it is living quietly at the Piasau Camp for many years.

The “Save Piasau Oriental Pied Hornbill” (OPH) project was initiated by Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) chairman Musa Musbah and fellow members since 2010. They have recorded and observed the Piasau OPH hornbills during the time.

The project was also a joint effort by the Sarawak Forestry Corporation, Shell Piasau Housing, Sarawak Shell Bhd, Pustaka Miri and Pustaka Sarawak.

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Malaysian Nature Society Miri

History repeats itself since June, as of around late morning yesterday, the API (Air Pollutant Index) for the Industrial Training Institute (ILP) in Miri stood at 236, which was 73 point-jump from the previous day from the API of 163 recorded at 11am on Sunday. The monitoring station is located near the fires which started on Friday.

A good API reading is from 0-50, moderate (51-100), unhealthy (101-200), very unhealthy (201-299) and hazardous from 300 and above. The rest of the country enjoyed normal or low moderate air quality readings.

"The air quality in Miri's Kuala Baram district has worsened to very unhealthy levels in just a day due to raging wildfires, making it the only area in the country with such poor readings.

This is the first time that very unhealthy readings have been recorded in the area and in the country since June. Miri town itself recorded low moderate air quality readings."

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