Victoria established the Victorian Environmental Water Holder (“VEWH”) in 2010, an organization with the capacity and responsibility to hold and manage water rights to maintain and improve the health of the aquatic environment. VEWH was created as a legal entity with the ability to hold water rights to decide how available water is used each year, and was given the power to buy and sell water on the water market. VEWH has the authority to sue and be sued, to enter into contracts, and to have the authority to acquire, hold and dispose of real and personal property on behalf of the environment. [7] With three commissioners and a small team of officials,[8] VEWH acts as a custodian of incoming environmental flows, working with other environmental water managers and watershed management authorities to determine where, when and how water should be used for the environment in the state of Victoria. Drawing on her experience advising on government policies and investigating land, resource and human rights conflicts with businesses, Aishah, a law professor, served as legal counsel on the working group. She says she was excited about the task, but was aware of the complex system of laws that overlap with the EQA, making it difficult to amend. “I have to admit that there are layers and layers of problems,” she says. “When [the Ministry of Environment] asked me to sit on the beef committee, I thought, `Wow, we have a hard job to do.` Plantations are largely subject to the Forest Act of 1984, which is structured around the various licences and permits for protected and unprotected forest areas. Malaysia`s forestry administration requires permit holders to draft a management and reforestation plan, but there are few or no recommendations or enforcement actions for the sustainable use of forests or ways to mitigate pollution or other environmental impacts on the area, whether protected or not. The pollution in Sungai Gong is an example of pollution from a factory approved by a local authority, the Selayang City Council. However, we cannot expect local authorities to understand the types of industrial waste generated by small and medium-sized industries, because local authorities are not chemists.
Therefore, the Environmental Quality Act of 1974 needs to be amended to control all industrial waste, as it is the Ministry of the Environment that has expertise in this regard and not the local authorities. In addition, the federal government, through the National Water Services Commission, must immediately amend the Water Industry Services Act 2006 to prosecute river pollutants that have led to the suspension of the water treatment plant and the interruption of the water supply. Meanwhile, state government agencies must constantly monitor activity along the river to avoid pollution. With regard to the protection of rivers, section 25 of the Environment Quality Act provides for restrictions on the pollution of inland waters (including rivers)[12] and requires that any person who violates these restrictions be punished by a fine of up to one hundred thousand ringgit or imprisonment for up to five (5) years, or both. [13] The Act also provides for an additional fine, not exceeding one thousand ringgit per day for each day the offence continues, after the offender has received a notice from the General Manager to cease the act specified therein. Funding is provided through a levy to all water users in Victoria, which is intended for the sustainable management of water resources. In addition, the state of Victoria enacted the Yarra River Protection Act 2017 (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) in 2017, which recognises the Yarra River as “a living, integrated natural entity”. Under the legislation, Birrarung Council has been designated by the government as the independent voice of the Yarra River.
Recently, some areas of the Klang Valley have faced water shortages, with four water treatment plants in Selangor closed on 3 September 2020. The defendants, who were involved in operating a factory related to the disposal of hazardous substances in Sungai Gong, Rawang, were released on September 22, 2020 on bail of RM 400,000 with one guarantee each by the Supreme Court judge. The public is furious as there have been peaceful protests outside the factory calling on the government to close the factory permanently. One minister called for changes to relevant laws to punish these polluters. The Chief Minister of Selangor announced that in March 2020, the company in question was warned for polluting Sungai Gong, Rawang, and fined RM60,000.00. Given the frequent pollution of rivers and the interruption of water supplies, will this ever end? Perhaps this will not end until all parties, including community members, play their respective roles in keeping our rivers, which are the main sources of our drinking water in Malaysia, clean. Meanwhile, the care and preservation of the environment is part of the religious claim. This is in accordance with Allah`s command, which means: “He brought you out of the earth and settled you there” (Surah Hud (11:61). In February, the state of Selangor announced it would detoxify and demolish 931 hectares (2,300 acres) of Kuala Langat forest, a species-rich peat swamp that absorbs flooding and detoxifies and demolishes sun bears, red fighting fish and other rare animals for a “mixed development project” with few details known.
Although other attempts at forest destruction in the past have been endorsed by state governments and passed at the federal level with few questions, Environment Minister Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man joined civil society and Orang Asli indigenous communities in voicing their concerns about the project and the power of the state of Selangor. Despite the state government`s proposal to replace the 931 hectares with nearly 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of other reserved forests, the undisclosed development plan was largely rejected by public complaints to the Selangor Forest Department, and several members of the state assembly protested the plan during the ongoing decision. claiming that they had not been consulted on a proposal to decommission the forest. The idea of granting legal personality and recognizing environmental interests was first suggested by Professor Christopher D. Stone in his book “Should Trees Have Standing? Towards Legal Rights for Natural Objects”, published in 1974. Professor Stone had proposed in his writings to give legal personality to natural resources in order to obtain legal status before the courts. The adoption of the rights of nature through the concept of environmental personality has been adopted in some countries. For example, countries like Ecuador, Bangladesh, New Zealand, Australia have joined the idea by giving personality to their rivers. ENVIRONMENTAL LAW – Pollution – River pollution – Law enforcement Although Malaysians suffer a series of water supply disruptions due to river pollution, Malaysians will continue to suffer for a long time from the pain of water interruption suffered by farmers in India, some of whom have reportedly committed suicide since 1986 due to crops and farms that are not cultivated. in addition to the debt burden.
In addition, there are also illegal factories that are not licensed by the Ministry of Environment or local authorities, which pose the greatest danger. In Selangor, for example, the Selangor Water Management Board and the Land and Minerals Board must act decisively by demolishing illegal factories that have recently caused a lot of river pollution. Section 5 of the Malaysian Federal Constitution, as interpreted by the Court of Appeal in the above-mentioned case, includes the right to live in a reasonably healthy and environmentally friendly environment. Therefore, the actions of polluters, especially in the recent case of five board members and arrested executives of the polluting company, are not only harmful to the environment, but also to our rights to a healthy life. People`s lives have been affected by the restrictions imposed and imposed due to Covid-19, and the reduction in water supply due to human pollution is exacerbating the situation. From the beginning, the EQA was designed to stop pollution incidents. Its provisions establish licensing and environmental impact assessment protocols and define pollution in a range of substances and environments. It remains the backbone of Malaysian environmental law at the federal level; Most decisions regarding land use and enforcement against violators are made at the state level.