SOMETIMES, I really despair at the way this country hates the country. I’m talking about the way we treat our environment. Going by the country’s environmental health record, we do not love what is ours. In fact, we are serious self-abusers. We rape, batter, poison and ruin our environment.

Here’s a rundown of the catalogue of abuse. Illegal logging. Hill cutting. River pollution. Marine pollution. Air pollution. Solid waste. Toxic waste. Deteriorating water quality. Declining coral reefs. Coastal erosion. Biodiversity loss. Overfishing. And so on?.

There is so much bad news and so little good news. We have a lot of policies and plans, but, as Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) notes, they seem to account to little more than rhetoric.

Yesterday’s news seems to repeat itself. Hill cutting and landslides still make the headlines. Haven’t we learned? Weren’t the deaths of 48 people from the collapse of Highland Towers in 1993 enough? Must we keep making the same mad mistakes?

Landslides occur so frequently in Cameron Highlands that a website to warn of erosion risks has been set up. Agricultural activities on slopes in catchments – some as steep as 25 degrees – has caused serious soil erosion. Two catchment areas have lost almost half their land in the last 50 years. Cameron Highlands is literally crumbling away?.

A dam that is the main source of power there was recently shut down due to siltation. It will cost a whopping RM150mil to rehabilitate the Sultan Abu Bakar Dam. Already, Tenaga Nasional has spent RM23mil to desilt the nearby lake.

Actually, siltation is so serious a national problem that some lakes and rivers are drying up. The largest freshwater lake, Loagan Bunut, in east Malaysia is drying up due to sedimentation from logging and land clearing. In dry weather, the lake – the size of 2,600 football fields – virtually disappears. And this lake is part of a national park!

Now consider our rivers, once so valued that states were named after them. Today, they are waterways of filth. According to SAM, 14 rivers are “hardcore poisoned”.

Given that 97% of our drinking water comes from rivers, it’s hardly surprising that water quality has deteriorated. In some areas, people may be literally drinking their own, er, waste. In Cameron Highlands, housing areas dump sewage upstream of water treatment plants. E.coli, a bacterium in faeces, has been detected in water samples.

The long coastlines that characterise Peninsular Malaysia are also under attack, due to improper land use and mangrove clearing. Today, more than half these coastlines have eroded. The bay across from Tioman Island has suffered so much coastal erosion that in parts, up to 20m of the shoreline has washed away. Twenty metres!

Then there is the age-old problem of illegal logging and encroachment into catchments or gazetted land. Yet more illegal logging cases were recently highlighted – Malacca’s Bukit Beruang forest reserve and a water catchment in Jerantut, Pahang.

Sometimes, the forces supposed to protect are culpable. In the recent Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam agriculture park controversy, a state-owned company was guilty of illegal earthworks.

The Prime Minister has noted the high number of illegal logging cases and called for swift action. (But what’s the point when the penalties are a mere slap on the wrist?) The Sultan of Perak has also called for preventive measures to address encroachment into water catchment areas and illegal logging.

You know what’s missing in all this? A sense of outrage from ordinary Malaysians. How come there are so few champions of the environment?

Yes, there are the long-standing environmental groups. And there are even New Age Malaysians praying for the earth’s healing. Yet by and large, we don’t care. That’s why I say: this country hates the country.

It upsets me deeply to see how some people let the tap run or print needlessly on fresh paper. What I find so disappointing is that 10 years ago, there was a drive to save our environment. Recycling was even briefly the rage. Where did that enthusiasm go? Today recycling is still the exception rather than the norm.

Yet it’s possible to recycle most waste. My mother recycles nearly all waste paper, plastic and metal. She composts all food waste and collects rainwater for watering the plants. Incidentally, how come in this land of tropical rainstorms, few people collect rainwater?

If Mother Earth were human, she would be an abused woman. And abused women can only take so much. In a century or so, the earth will have few resources left for us to misuse and abuse. Will we wake up to our course of self-annihilation in time?

Mangai Balasegaram is a journalist who stubbornly remains an optimist, despite more than a decade of working on bad news. She still believes it is possible to change the world, if only by changing the perspective a little bit. Send your feedback to starmag@thestar.com.my.