Piasau Camp Miri Nature Park Society

suppadmin | April 7, 2014

Chairman of Piasau Camp Miri Nature Park Society (PCMNPS), Dato’ Sebastian Ting marveled at how fast time has passed as they had the park protected and conserved for the wildlife.

Going back to how it all started, Ting in his speech at the annual general meeting recently said a couple of years ago, a few close friends casually mentioned that ” Piasau Camp including the sea was a Beautiful area and something need to be done to keep Piasau Camp a green area.

He said although it started from a casual chat, some hard thinking and a dream to do something about it, that dream has turned into a reality when they met up with Musa, Chairman of Malaysian Nature Society, Miri Branch.

Ting said he was invited to attend a seminar on Oriental Pied Hornbills found in Piasau Camp in May 2012 organized by Malaysian Nature Society Miri Branch and was very impressed with Musa’s presentation.

The discussion grew serious and Ting said he with Andy Chia, Karambir Singh, Richard Teo, Dr Roland Mattu and Musa decided to further their discussion over dinner.

From there, “AWalk in the Park” at Piasau Camp was organized to create an awareness to the public on what Miriams had inside Piasau Camp, the Beautiful Oriental Pied Hornbills and so many other birds and insects.

A sub committee known as Piasau Camp Hornbill Park Committee was formed under the Malaysian Nature Society Miri Branch and still led by Musa to organize A Walk in the Park.

The first Walk was held on the 5th January 2013 at 4.30pm. The primary objective of Hornbill Walk or Walk in the Park, added Ting was to create an awareness and drummed up more support urging the government, Petronas and Sarawak Shell to gazette Piasau Camp as nature or green park for the preservation, conservation and improvement of Piasau Camp for the people, our children our future generations and residents of Miri..

Two hundred green T shirts with the words ” Hornbill Park, Miri. Save Piasau Oriental Pied Hornbill Malaysian Nature Society Miri”. was printed and to be given to people who came and joined the First Walk. We thought 200 T shirts should be adequate but he was happy to find more than 700 people attended.

Ting said, “The support was really overwhelming and indeed we were pleasantly surprised as the publicity of this first Walk was through FB, Internet, SMS and other social media.. We thought the publicity was not enough.. We pledged to give the same T short to those who did not receive the T shirt after reprinting. This was done.” Following the huge success of the 1st Walk in the Park, there were 6 more walks last year, the last on December 14.

The first Walk this year was on January 18 which was participated also by National President of the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) Professor Dr Maketab Mohamad who assured to give us all the support available in helping us to make this nature reserve a successful joint project of the government Petronas Sarawak Shell, Malaysian Nature Society and Miri community.

He said on February 15th this year, despite the rain and other major high impact functions including inaugural Country Music Festival, many still turned up.

In August last year the Piasau Camp Miri Nature Park Society was registered. Ting said he should say a Special thanks to Karambir Singh, the Treasurer, who prepared the first draft constitution of our Society for discussion and decision. It was with amazing speed that We received the approval with the original certificate of registration dated 23rd October 2013. He also thanked Musa, our Deputy Chairman, as Malaysian Nature Society Chairman Miri Branch and Malaysian Nature Society KL for allowing us, the then committee to be parked under MNS for ten months thereabout

Ting said he was thrilled to read in the papers during the May DUN sitting, Tan Sri Adenan Satem, the then Minister of Special Functions in the Chief Minister Office and now our YAB Chief Minister of Sarawak that the government would be looking into, amongst others, to gazette and preserve of Piasau Camp as a Nature Reserve Green Park.

Last November the press reported that Datu Sudarsono the Permanent Secretary to the Minister of Resources and Planning also mentioned that the Sarawak Government had approved to gazette the area in Piasau Camp as a Nature Reserve Green Park.

Also in November 3rd last year, he said Datuk Len Latiff , the Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister’s office, visited the Piasau Park and announced that the then CM YAB Pehin Sri Abdul Taib ( now our TYT) agreed to gazette Piasau Camp as the Nature Reserve Green Park and the target date was by the end of December 2013. We heard that the size of this land was mentioned to be 170 acres…

During the Shell Press night in Kuching 2013, Sarawak Shell Bhd Chairman and Managing Director Mr Ian Lo announced and confirmed that Sarawak Government had agreed to the proposal that Piasau Camp be gazetted as a Nature Reserve Green Park and that Petronas and Shell would allocate RM10 million for this purpose.

“I learned from our Society Publicity officer Cecilia that she had just conducted an interview with Datuk Len Latiff who reiterated that Sarawak Government had taken concrete steps to gazette the Piasau Camp as Nature Reserve Green Park and in fact the earth breaking ceremony would be soon, details of which would be made known once the date is confirmed. So my dear Mirians and friends our Nature Reserve Green Park dream would soon be a reality. It is only the beginning as more things have been planned on how to improve this beautiful land here

For now, on behalf of al the committee members and members and the people of Miri I would like to say Thank you to the following people:

(1) The then CM Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud,( now TYT)

(2) Our new Chief Minister of Sarawak, YAB Tan Sri Adenan Satem,

(3) Sarawak Government and the team of senior government officers working on this.

(4) Datuk Len Latiff,

(5) Datu Wee Yaw Hin, Senior Vice President of Exploration and Production and his team in Petronas,

(6) Mr Iain Lo and his team in Sarawak Shell Bhd

(7) My Committee members and those who had volunteered and contributed their time and energy to be with us and helped us in our dream of getting this Piasau Camp gazetted as a permanent Nature Reserve Green Park.

(8) The public who had been giving us the strong support in our monthly Walk, including their lovely children.. We sincerely hope you all had enjoyed the walk just as much as we did.

(9) Our dear media friends, in particular, Cecilia of Borneo Post, who is also our Publicity Officer, Rick Wong and Vicky Chang of See Hua Newspaper Lo Kiun Sin of Sin Chew newspaper Adrian Tang of United Daily and TV1 crew for their fantastic coverage for all our Walks and activities..

Ting said he was also pleased to learn that the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Resources Planning and Environment Datu Sudarsono Osman led an entourage to pay a courtesy call on Yang di Pertua Negeri Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud at Demak Jaya in Kuching on Friday (4th April 2014) .

The entourage included representatives from govt departments and agencies, as well as ftom Shell and Petronas .

The main purpose of the visit was to invite TYT to officiate at the earth breaking ceremony to convert Piasau Camp in Miri into a nature reserve on May 10th 2014.

“Indeed this is a Wonderful and Excellent news for the people of Miri and residents of people and all those who have helped in one way or another in our journey to request the Sarawak government , Shell and Petronas to preserve the famous and historical Piasau Camp and conserve it as a nature park.

This is and will be a Wonderful and Memorable Legacy for the people of Miri and for that matter the people of Sarawak, now and into the future. Our future generations will greatly benefit from this historical day. We, the committee members of Piasau Camp Miri Nature Park Society.(PCMNPS) would like to place on record our highest appreciation and gratitude and we say loudly:

THANK YOU VERY MUCH TO EVERYBODY WHO HAD HELPED IN THIS JOURNEY OF US.. I HAD MENTIONED THEIR NAMES IN MY SPEECH AT THE 2ND ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF PCMNPS.. This was posted here on 16th March 2014,” he added.