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Wetland Management & Conservation
The Sungai Pencala Rehabilitation Programme
Global Environment Centre (GEC), in collaboration with MPPJ (under the Local Agenda 21 Petaling Jaya), DBKL, Cntre for environmental Technologies (CETEC) and Yayasan Anak Warisan Alam (YAWA), is currently implementing a 3-year DANIDA funded project on Community Participation In River Management, where Sungai Pencala is one of the demonstration sites in Selangor, Malaysia. The partners of this programme are Dewan Bandaran Kuala Lumpur (DBKL), Majlis Perbandaran Petaling Jaya (MPPJ), Centre for Environmental Technologies (CETEC), Yayasan Anak Warisan Alam (YAWA), Taman Aman Resident Association and the Section 19 Resident Association.
The project aims to improve the quality of Malaysian rivers and the status of its biodiversity through awareness campaigns and enhancement of community participation in river management. The project hopes to increase the understanding on the benefits of managing our rivers well and develop ownership towards rivers among the general public, community groups and special interest groups. With a collective effort to control pollution sources, Sungai Pencala could provide a valuable amenity to the local community as well as contributing to national efforts to improve our river and water quality.
The Sungai Pencala Catchment has an area of 28 square kilometres. The catchment is drained by 31.4 km of trunk drains, with the main drainage channel, Sungai Pencala (12 km), discharging into Sungai Kelang.
Sungai Pencala is a relatively short river and flows down from Bukit Kiara into two main tributaries: one through KL Golf and Country Club and the other through the Kiara Park in Taman Tun Dr Ismail. Sungai Pencala is special because it crosses two districts i.e. the river catchment is located in Kuala Lumpur but most of the river is in Petaling Jaya. The top 23% of the catchment and 4.8 km of its trunk drains are in the Federal Territory. The remainder falls in the Selangor State, 93% of which is within the administrative territory of the Petaling Jaya Municipal Council.
The tributary in Taman Tun Dr Ismail first flows through the beautiful Kiara Park where it is turned into a canal lined with terracotta bricks, except at a short stretch to allow public access to the water. Neat as it looks, the artificial canal deprives the stream of its natural filtering function.
Once it leaves the park, flowing through the highly urbanised Taman Tun Dr Ismail, the stream is deepened, widened, and turned into a concrete channel. Here, it is linked with the residential drainage network and fed with domestic waste water and leaking sewage.
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The Sungai Pencala meandering through Bukit Kiara Park.
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It is reunited with the other tributary near the Damansara Sewage Treatment Plant. By then, the river is further contaminated with animal waste and human sewage: the first is discharged from the equestrian park at the foothill of Bukit Kiara, the second, from a malfunctioning sewage treatment plant operated by the KL Golf and Country Club.
The river then enters the Petaling Jaya district at Section 17 (Damansara Intan) and flows through many residential and industrial areas. Here, islands of rubbish begin appearing in and along the banks of the river. The eyesore is worst in Section 19 where about 800 squatter houses are located. More pollution is pumped into the river from the industrial areas of Section 13 and 14 before it eventually winds up in Sungai Kelang near Kampung Penaga.
However, Sungai Pencala has a little secret: At its upper catchment, especially its headwaters on the hillock of Bukit Kiara, the river is CLEAN and BUBBLING as it flows through the secondary forest there. The sight of the
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The channelised Sungai Pencala at Section 19. The Pencala has turned black due to sewage discharge from a nearby treatment plant.
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crystal-clear water gushing out from the rock crevices have exhilarated the few privileged hikers who have been there. Those who have quenched their thirst with it attested that it tasted as good as it looked.
Contrast this with what we normally see of Sungai Pencala – a brown and dirty channel that hardly resembles a river. This is because almost 70% of the original river course, especially where it passes through residential and industrial areas, has been concrete-lined. The quality of the river steadily deteriorates as it meanders further downstream, and begins to look more like an open sewer, its murky water laden with all kinds of waste and rubbish.
However, NATURE has a way of surprising us when we least expect it. Sungai Pencala still supports a limited amount of fish such as snakeheads (ikan haruan) and eels (ikan belut) at some stretches as well as some wildlife such as herons and kingfishers.
So, in spite of our worst efforts, the river can still be saved. As British ecologist and conservation scientist Dr Derek Ratcliffe said,
“Nothing is safe now, anywhere in the world. How much survives will depend on how many people care, how much they care, and what they are prepared to do.”
To read more related issues, please visit
Asia-Pacific Migratory Waterbird Conservation Strategy
Ramsar
Swedish National Wetland Inventory (in Swedish)
Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust
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