Rubbish, say Asians of Prince Charles' comments
By
PRINCE Charles’ sweeping accusation that surging Asian nations were guilty of poisoning the environment has sparked angry rebuttals from a cross-section of opinion makers who believe that he may have untypically overstated what is in any event a poor case.
"I think he is trying to discredit us. He is jealous of our fast growth," Malaysian Science, Technology and Environment Minister Datuk Law Hieng Ding told The Straits Times yesterday.
Prince Charles, 45, had alleged before an audience of industrialists in Sydney on Tuesday that "throughout Asia, much of the land, water and air is being poisoned every day from unbridled development pressure".
He went on to say that Asia was "facing some of the toughest challenges associated with growth rates which are unmatched even in earlier industrial revolutions in the West".
Datuk Law, in an interview in his office in Kuala Lumpur, pointed out that most Asian nations, including Malaysia, had accepted the importance of protecting the environment for future generations.
In his opinion, Westerners have frequently been noticed twisting facts and applying double standards against Asia on issues such as democracy, human rights and the environment.
"We worked on the basis that development should not take place at the expense of the environment," he asserted. Prince Charles, he said, should first visit Asia to see things for himself before making wild accusations.
Friends of the Earth Indonesia (Walhi), an environmental group in Jakarta, also charged that the British Prince’s allegations were unfair.
Prince Charles should not single out Asian countries because industrialists everywhere discharge affluents into rivers and cut down trees, Ms Ita Rachmita, Walhi’s programme co-ordinator, told The Straits Times.
In Singapore, Nature Society President Wee Yeow Chin said the Prince’s statement could be considered fair if it applied to developing countries anywhere.
He said many Asian countries were now experiencing only what Western Europe and the United States had been through several years ago in their thrust to become developed nations.
At the time they too were cutting down trees and polluting their environment in the pursuit of economic growth.
In Kuala Lumpur, Mr Gurmit Singh, president of the Environmental Protection Society of Malaysia, noted that environment damage occurred not just in Asia but in many other parts of the world.
"What the Prince said could apply to some Asian countries, not to others," he said.
But as a whole, he added, the Prince’s comments should be seen in the wide context of the adverse effects of development on the quality of the environment.
Source : The Straits Times, January 22, 1994
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