Adult river terrapins huddling in a corner of a pool at the River Terrapin Conservation Centre in Bota Kanan, Perak. — Photos: Bernama
A small head peeks out, its beady eyes staring at the humans interrupting its day.
“It’s kinda cute,” Friends of Nature (SAM) field officer Meor Razak Meor Abd Rahman told Bernama as he held the baby terrapin in his palm.
Moments later, the southern river terrapin, colloquially named tuntung sungai (batagur affinis) in Malay, flips out of his hand and tumbles back into the teenage terrapin pool.
The little animal’s attempt at freedom generates laughter among visitors at the River Terrapin Conservation Centre in Bota Kanan, Perak.
While the centre helps preserve the species, experts argue that such facilities should be a last resort in conservation.
As it turns out, river terrapins are not fond of humans or loud noises.
In the adult pool, located in a roofed shed within the centre’s 6.3ha compound, the adult terrapins huddle in one corner in trying to escape the visitors.
Measuring about a foot long and dark grey in colour, they climb over one another in their attempt to get away from humans.
Their shy nature combined with the destruction of their riverbank habitat by human activities like sand mining, have resulted in the near extinction of the species in the wild.
These freshwater terrapins are now listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as critically endangered.
“Sand mining has wiped out the sandbars and sandy banks along Sungai Perak.
“Where will the terrapins land to lay their eggs?” said Meor Razak.
Losing ground
River terrapins are already extinct in the wild in Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore.
Experts caution that Perak may soon follow suit if more efforts are not made to protect them.
News reports from 2019 indicate that there had been no sightings of wild river terrapins in Perak for several years.
At the conservation centre, around 100 river terrapins of various ages and sizes are being bred and raised to be released into the wild after a few years.
Meor Razak holding a baby terrapin at the conservation centre.The centre has a fenced-off sandbank by the river, where the terrapins are released.
Conservationists hope that once mature, the terrapins will return to this site to nest.
Turtle Conservation Society of Malaysia president Dr Maketab Mohamed likened the centre to a zoo, warning that river terrapins could become locally extinct if nothing was done to protect them in the wild.
While the centre helps preserve the species, experts argue that such facilities should be a last resort in conservation.
“There used to be a lot of terrapins in Sungai Perak.
“In the old days, the largest population was there but now, because of sand removal, there is no place for them to lay eggs.
“We haven’t had a single terrapin come up in the river,” said Maketab.
When they come ashore to lay eggs but find no nesting sites, they return to the river, this eventually would lead to its extinction, he pointed out.
River terrapins, he said, were also far less fertile than their sea turtle cousins.
While sea turtles lay an average of 110 eggs two to eight times per season, river terrapins lay only about 25 to 30 eggs per season.
In river sand mining, the method used is to place a backhoe right at the water’s edge to scoop sand from the river, often in areas meant to act as buffer zones.
These zones are also where river terrapins nest.
The mounds of sand created on the riverbanks and the loss of vegetation discourage terrapins from landing, while the mining activities increase water turbidity and remove vital organisms from the riverbed, harming the overall health of the river ecosystem.
Sand mining
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, sand is the most mined material in the world, with about 50 billion metric tonnes extracted annually.
Sand mining, or dredging, is not limited to rivers.
It is also extracted from inland dunes, beaches and ocean beds.
However, coarse river sand is especially sought after for construction.
A 2022 UN report found that sand mining was increasing globally at a rate of 6%, describing this growth as “unsustainable.”
Additionally, many sand mining projects worldwide are illegal.
The global sand mining industry is valued at US$151bil (RM620bil).
In Perak, most river sand mining activities are licensed.
As the activity is licensed, breaching the river buffer zones is not illegal although conservationists say this may not necessarily be good for the river.
They have criticised the Perak government for approving too many projects in the past, a claim the government denies.
Perak science, environment and green technology committee chairman Teh Kok Lim said all approved sand-mining projects in the state had met the requirements set by the Environment Department (DOE) and other regulatory bodies.
“Many sand-mining projects are initiated to deepen the river.
“When the project is approved, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report is required.
“For most projects, the EIA is mandatory – even small-scale mining requires it,” he said.
Teh emphasised that the approval process must be carried out with care.
While DOE is a federal agency, state-level DOE offices are responsible for issuing licensing permits.
However, EIA reports are not always accessible for the public.
Although DOE publishes EIA reports for pending projects on its website, finding specific reports after project approval is often difficult.
Teh said everyone would benefit when the process was handled properly with the state profiting from sand sales, locals gaining employment, and flood mitigation objective achieved.
Maketab, who is also a water quality expert, dismissed the government’s justification.
“To me, the flood-mitigation argument is just an excuse.
“If you want to dredge a river, you do it at certain times and stop once the work is done.
“This is continuous removal of sand,” said the former Universiti Teknologi Malaysia professor.
Enforcement issues
When it comes to balancing the environment and the economy, the environment rarely wins unless the situation becomes dire.
Former Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) director-general Datuk Nor Hisham Mohd Ghazali said there often had to be a compromise in such cases.
“It is the price one pays for economic progress,” he said at his office in Putrajaya.
“I believe we have the laws, but we are not effective at communicating them to the public,” he added.
Many experts agree that enforcing existing laws would be more effective than introducing new ones.
In addition to the EIA requirement, Perak’s River Right Act of 1915, the country’s oldest conservation law, helps protect river terrapins by regulating the consumption of terrapin eggs – a local delicacy – and conserving terrapin eggs along Sungai Perak.
However, this law, regulated by the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan), does not establish specific conservation areas.
The Wildlife Conservation Act of 2010 enables both state and federal authorities to designate wildlife sanctuaries or reserves.
However, according to Meor Razak, there are no officially protected nesting sites for the river terrapin, apart from the one at the conservation centre.
Both Meor and Hafizudin Nasarudin, who is Friends of Nature Activist Group (Kuasa) Supreme Council chair, agree that enforcing current laws and regulations pertaining to the river terrapin’s habitat is best.
Hafizudin said while conservation efforts at the centre were laudable, they should not be the only solution.
“A hatchery is pointless if the sandy banks the terrapins need to nest are disappearing,” he said.
“The ultimate solution is that you have to restore the riverbank.
“In the long term, the depth (of the river) will automatically increase,” he added.
