Backpackers take environmental auditing into their own hands

About 30 volunteers led by the Association of Backpackers Malaysia (ABM) gathered at the Taman Aman Lake Garden in Section 20 Petaling Jaya to participate in an environmental audit of the recreational park and lake recently.

Environmental auditing is a management tool to objectively and systematically evaluate environment management system with the following objectives; waste prevention and reduction, assessing compliance with regulatory requirements and placing environmental information in public domain.

Their report focused on ten areas such as cleanliness, maintenance, playground safety, lighting on walkways, toilet hygiene, lake pollution, drainage inspection, safety of LRT pillars, car park usage and sporting facilities.

“Nobody mentioned an audit on the environment before and it is not a simple procedure as ABM has been researching this area,” said ABM president Dr. Wong Sai Hou who launched the environmental audit team at a basketball court next to the lake.

Speaking at a press conference after the launch, Wong said: ”ABM was formed in 1990 and our job was to set adventure trails for all mountains and we had achieved trailing the mountains above seven thousand feet on the Main Range.

“We completed that feat in the 1990s. Today, we have found another strength and we are going to devote our time to nation building.

“Nation building means spending our time with people, nature and the environment. So we came out with this idea to do an audit of the environment”.

“We will work with local NGOs and the authorities on the findings.”

The audit team comprised of members from several NGOs such as ABM, Jaycees, Kiwanis, House Hatch Harriers as well as SS3 RT, SS3 RA, SEA Park RT and SEA Park RA. Also participating were officials of MCA PJ Utara and retired headmasters and teachers.

Before they proceeded to carry checks on the lake, each team member was given a checklist and Wong went through the list briefing participants and media personnel present on the 10 checklist items to be covered.

Wong also explained the importance of COMBI – Communication in Behavioral Impact.

“COMBI was started for the purposes of dengue prevention. It means you get the community encourage their village folks or neighbours in behavioral change.

“The communal behavior is the primary “warrior” against mosquito breeding,” said Wong.

“We want to be part of the COMBI team to go around the neighborhood to educate the public on Mosquito breeding. With the assistance of the NGOs, they too will become part of the COMBI team. We want to form as many COMBI teams as possible to fight dengue.

“We are adopting for the moment, Damansara New Village to be the pilot project as it has only 118 families living on a small hill top and I think it is within a good walking distance for everybody.

“So when we go to each house we will show them how to use Abate properly. We will also leave behind one of the pamphlets in various languages, including Tamil and Mandarin for them to execute the clearing process independently.”