I didn’t realise how much I would actually enjoy living in Sarawak till my second semester. I finally got past my insecurities of being alone and away from familiarity, family and friends and just decided to embrace what’s in front of me, instead of what could’ve, should’ve and would’ve been I saw that where ever I was, the world was waiting to be discovered by me.

I plan to see as much of Sarawak as I can, I don’t only mean the commercial places and events like the rainforest festival which I felt was blown way out of proportion and is the farthest thing from what Sarawak truly is. People were actually handing out flyers with “What Rainforest?” printed on them. If you don’t already know this, the state Government is planning to build a series of 12 dams to generate enough electricity to power entire Sarawak 10 times over. Which is freakin obscene, because

1) the current power supply is sufficient to sustain citizens in Sarawak,

2) in constructing the dams, the authorities would have displaced a thousand over families even though it is part of their Native Customary Rights land, cleared out the patches of RAINFOREST and in doing so destroy the habitats of several endangered species which have been conveniently left out of the EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) which records the flora and fauna that will be affected due to deforestation.

Anyways, I could go on and on about this, but I feel everyone should at least be aware of what’s going on especially about matters that impact our country. It’s easy to be apathetic and not give a damn, especially since most of us are in west Malaysia and are nowhere near the areas affected, so you’re probably thinking “What the hell?” I was lucky enough to be able to visit one of the kampongs that’ll be affected by the building of the dams and it was really sad to know that their livelihood a natural beauty will be destroyed in the name of “Development”. There are clearly so many other methods in which energy can be generated without causing this much damage. Like I said, I could go on.

Point is, please read, read, read as much as you can about such matters and spread the awareness. Start something or express your thoughts. A lot of news about this issue and other similar issues can be found on this website http://www.rengah.c2o.org/. Do check it out.