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The role of an Inland lake Tasek Bera like any other water basin performs many important hydrological functions. They help to regulate in flood control and river flow regulation. The terrain and vegetations works as a large water purifier, replenish groundwater and a main source of water supply.
The relatively remote water basin is important as a prime example of freshwater swamp habitat, black water lacustrine ecosystem that continues to support a high biodiversity. Changing Environment around the Lake All this while, Tasek Bera was surrounded by a lush, incredibly diverse lowland tropical rain forest. Recently more palm oil estates are opened, at or come close to its fringes. Such development is affecting and slowly altering the ecosystem and reducing the well preserved centuries old prolific ecosystem .
Following the trend of other rainforest area, most of the timber trees are systematically log. Tasek Bera then was the last refuge of the great wilderness in Malaysia. Now, most lowland forest around the lake was also cleared, generating more land for Palm oil. Thanks to the vastness of the land area and its swampiness, many parts or even the entire lake area is still worth managing. Some concerns and challenges Several Rivers that comb the undulating plains of Central Pahang drain into the Lake. This region is essentially an agricultural society with widespread plantations. The farmers here get engaged in growing cash crop to supplement their income. With it , the river water bring down pesticides and remnants of used fertilizers and increasing its level gradually. Surprisingly, the lake is also a victim of a back flow of water from the west during Monsoon season, bringing along seasonal floods. Such conditions aggravated by land clearing has brought about greater fluctuations of water levels in the course of a single year. Marks on the roots in the picture below tell the story
The act of opening the land and publicity bring along more visitors and fortune hunters to the lake. New and more canals are prepared for navigation. With this clearing of vegetations, it is another action that slowly alters the eco system The richness of these waters are now known to contain aquarium fishes, jungle products such as wildlife, resins and cane etc has drawn more non residents to work on these resources. Their uncontrolled removal is just depleting and denuding the environment. The direct effects of all these happenings are surfaced in reports of poorer harvest of fishes from the lake and a mark increase in diseases found on fishes. The Future Conservations is a new science and to make it work, government agencies entrusted with their variety of tasks must find the need to co ordinate and synergies among themselves.
More and new canals are opened to facilitate new users. To start off with, the standard benchmark of monitoring of water quality is not faithfully followed. The major agencies involved here are:-
With its acceptance of the area as a Ramsar Site, 26,000 ha has been gazetted as a protective area for its conservation backed up by another 27,500 ha as buffer zone. The central core surrounding Tasek Bera, comprising approximately 31,955ha, is currently designated as a Wildlife Reserve |
