The recent crocodile attack got me thinking about the various public facilities that are populated with wildlife, such as Silver Jubilee Park and Serasa Beach, and what we can do as a community to address the issue.
The kneejerk reaction is to kill all the crocodiles, thus removing the threat, once and for all.
However, scientists would most likely frown on the suggestion as a serious disruption to the ecosystem as it would take set us back in terms of environmental efforts.
Perhaps the only way to tackle this is through education. Quite a number of countries have nature parks for the public to visit and get up close and personal with the wildlife. The more exposure we have to them, the better our approach to forming a symbiotic relationship with them. The introduction of such parks in Brunei would be timely as technological advancement means more and more people are hooked to the Internet and everything that it has to offer.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has driven home the need for physical exercise among adults, we need to do more to entice our children to leave the comfort of their own homes and explore the great outdoors.
With 70 per cent of our land being covered in rainforests, there is so much potential to educate the public about nature, while supporting the fight against climate change.If done right, not only would these nature parks serve as learning centres for the populace, they may also lure foreign travellers in, thus boosting our tourism industry.
Building a nature park is a huge undertaking; it is not something that can be done overnight.
But we ought to try before more wildlife habitats are lost, and the animals continue to encroach on our domains. We need to work together to find a sustainable solution, and the only way to do so is to make sure we are educated enough to better understand the complexity of our ecosystem and redesign an infrastructure that protects both us and the wildlife.
Conversationalist
