Federal Park Bukit Kiara is managed by the National Landscape Department.
National Landscape Day is celebrated today
LANDSCAPE entities play a vital role in shaping and balancing physical developments particularly in the urban areas. With rapid urban growth, guidelines for sustainable planning and management are equally pertinent to ensure the well-being of urban dwellers and environmental balance.
Urban environmental issues such as ecological footprints and social challenges like improving human health as well as well-being need a concerted effort. For instance, stakeholders namely policy makers and local governments shall provide sufficient and quality interconnected green spaces. Hence with all the hustle and bustle in environmental issues versus commercialisation, we have responsibilities to young generation in the future.
Public spaces vs commercialism
The preservation of natural landscape is not just an issue to be highlighted as there is a lack of awareness on the part of current stakeholders but the lack of green spaces in urban area is also named as a major sickness in development.
Naming it as earth-ornamental and compound accessories has made it a non-compulsory element in development. The series of playing the blame game among the commercial sectors to prioritise their needs have left landscape and green spaces located at the last column in their bills of quantities.
To date, the National Landscape Department has successfully developed 9,585ha of public parks nationwide which is 14.26% of the total open space targeted for this year. But that figure is lower than the actual target. Therefore, to achieve the target of 57,614ha, more land needs to be developed as green areas.
But the fight with commercialism is an uphill battle. With the lack of land to be distributed as public spaces and the norm of thinking that landscape is non-revenue spaces, these two major issues will persist if action is not taken.
Public awareness vs government action
Landscape and green belts are always associated with maintenance. A good landscape needs to be well-maintained and kept clean. The new look of Taman Tasik Titiwangsa in Kuala Lumpur for instance, was vandalised just five hours after it was opened to the public since the completion of a one-year refurbishment project.
Now let’s take a look at the local government expenditure in landscape maintenance. According to MBJB, they spent more than RM1.3mil for their soft landscape maintenance and another RM1.5mill for hard landscape wear and tear. The overall budget of RM448.14mil in 2017 has been spent on landscape development by the three tiers of government – federal, state and at the local level – which equals to 1.0% of the total development’s expenditure by the federal government on that particular year.
Having spent a lot on landscape development, vandalism is still the root cause of landscape maintenance problem. That said, this calls for urgent public awareness. Under Thrust 1 of the National Landscape Policy (NLP), the department has underlined a roadmap to inculcate the appreciation towards landscape.
In line with that, the National Landscape Department is organising a National Landscape Day on March 3 each year, to educate the public on appreciating and caring for the landscape.
This year it will be celebrated on March 1 at Taman Botani Perdana with the theme Future Landscape Is Now. As the Government shows its effort to nurture the community, it aims to educate the younger generation to appreciate the landscape and make it as a culture parallel with the National Landscape Policy.
Ujana Perbandaran Sg Petani was developed by the National Landscape Department.
With educational community programmes such as Pembudayaan Landskap and Rakan Taman, the government agency hopes that the awareness of maintaining the landscape could materialise.
For these two programmes, events such as planting trees, decorating public spaces and repairing damaged landscape infrastructure will be carried out with the community, corporate bodies and government sectors.
Therefore, the responsibility of the landscape development is a task for all sectors. In addition, it also helps the local authorities on landscape maintenance.
For more information, visit www.jln.gov.my
