Very interesting and I am very proud on how the meeting was conducted.
My personal observation was that the Local Council seem to be willing to listen to all parties and shown strong tendencies toward the Goodness of the Industry.
They took the liberty to invite many knowledgeable people to be in the meeting, including myself, Veterinary Department Representatives, Perhilitan Representative, SPCA President,The Warisan Negara Head and all the KPs of local Perbandaran.
There were many Dato's and Datins in the meeting too.
The meeting started with Dr.Reduan, from Jabatan Vetarina, to introduce the industry in general and after him was the presentation on the Guidelines paper by a JPPD representative.
The atmosphere was cordial and various points raised were more towards improving the Industry but at the same look at the long term impact of converting shop houses into BHs. Their Guidelines main intention was to promote the use of Agricultural or Industrial Land as the appropriate areas to operate birdhouses.
Their concern was on the possibility of any diseases, like bird flu, that might give a serious consequences to the general public. Currently those bird call noises are unbearable.
No new BHs shall be permitted in the town areas and those who have their BH in town need to move out within a given time frame that shall be decided by the Ketua Pengarah PBT of the States.
There will be exceptions depending on the good will of the Ketua Pengarah.
So those of you who wanted to built your dream BH in town areas you better do it now or perhaps have a good considerations to start looking around for an Agricultural land close to those major swiftlet city towns. Once the Garis Panduan is implemented, there will be lots of birds looking for new BH to stay.
Once the Garis Panduan is accepted you have very little chance to own one in town.
During the discussion I was given a number of opportunities to express what I feel they the committee should know and try to make sure they will use them when implementing the guidelines.
I voiced my concern on the length of time to implement or legalised the swiftlet farming, shortage of technically competent enforcers, the lack of proper building codes for swiftlet farm house, why these swiftlet prefer town areas, the methods to move the birds from town to approved areas, how to determine a suitable areas to move the BHs, the swiftlets eating pattern, their breeding cycle and so on.
I also took time to stay back and set down with the Committee Chairwoman to point out some adjustments that I feel need corrections in the Draft. There were at least 8 -10 points that I highlighted to her and she seem to be very accommodating.
One thing for sure, they do need a bit more time to perhaps call a meeting with the industry players, birdhouse owners associations, Persatuan Peladang, Felda/Felcra, and related parties to meet and discuss those points that they are going to implement.
They cannot effort to make the owners to feel threaten or treat unjustly like those that happened in Mukah, Sarawak recently.
They were reminded, any uncalled actions which lead to slaughtering of those young birds, will only harm the industry in total.
Once that happened, we might not be able to export our products to foreign countries. This will let us loose at least one billion a year of foreign money coming into the country.
Overall I think this guideline is timely and I hope the Department will quickly finalise it and start the implementation in stages.
Something to add:
One of the officer from Perhilitan indicated that they have conducted a study by placing a GPS sensor on swiftlets and managed to track their daily flight behavior.
He also confirmed that the department have also conducted studies on the use of sonar sound to attract swiftlets.
My personal observation was that the Local Council seem to be willing to listen to all parties and shown strong tendencies toward the Goodness of the Industry.
They took the liberty to invite many knowledgeable people to be in the meeting, including myself, Veterinary Department Representatives, Perhilitan Representative, SPCA President,The Warisan Negara Head and all the KPs of local Perbandaran.
There were many Dato's and Datins in the meeting too.
The meeting started with Dr.Reduan, from Jabatan Vetarina, to introduce the industry in general and after him was the presentation on the Guidelines paper by a JPPD representative.
The atmosphere was cordial and various points raised were more towards improving the Industry but at the same look at the long term impact of converting shop houses into BHs. Their Guidelines main intention was to promote the use of Agricultural or Industrial Land as the appropriate areas to operate birdhouses.
Their concern was on the possibility of any diseases, like bird flu, that might give a serious consequences to the general public. Currently those bird call noises are unbearable.
No new BHs shall be permitted in the town areas and those who have their BH in town need to move out within a given time frame that shall be decided by the Ketua Pengarah PBT of the States.
There will be exceptions depending on the good will of the Ketua Pengarah.
So those of you who wanted to built your dream BH in town areas you better do it now or perhaps have a good considerations to start looking around for an Agricultural land close to those major swiftlet city towns. Once the Garis Panduan is implemented, there will be lots of birds looking for new BH to stay.
Once the Garis Panduan is accepted you have very little chance to own one in town.
During the discussion I was given a number of opportunities to express what I feel they the committee should know and try to make sure they will use them when implementing the guidelines.
I voiced my concern on the length of time to implement or legalised the swiftlet farming, shortage of technically competent enforcers, the lack of proper building codes for swiftlet farm house, why these swiftlet prefer town areas, the methods to move the birds from town to approved areas, how to determine a suitable areas to move the BHs, the swiftlets eating pattern, their breeding cycle and so on.
I also took time to stay back and set down with the Committee Chairwoman to point out some adjustments that I feel need corrections in the Draft. There were at least 8 -10 points that I highlighted to her and she seem to be very accommodating.
One thing for sure, they do need a bit more time to perhaps call a meeting with the industry players, birdhouse owners associations, Persatuan Peladang, Felda/Felcra, and related parties to meet and discuss those points that they are going to implement.
They cannot effort to make the owners to feel threaten or treat unjustly like those that happened in Mukah, Sarawak recently.
They were reminded, any uncalled actions which lead to slaughtering of those young birds, will only harm the industry in total.
Once that happened, we might not be able to export our products to foreign countries. This will let us loose at least one billion a year of foreign money coming into the country.
Overall I think this guideline is timely and I hope the Department will quickly finalise it and start the implementation in stages.
Something to add:
One of the officer from Perhilitan indicated that they have conducted a study by placing a GPS sensor on swiftlets and managed to track their daily flight behavior.
He also confirmed that the department have also conducted studies on the use of sonar sound to attract swiftlets.
1 comment:
It is very helpful!
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