Gunung Jerai is one of the more famous mountains in Malaysia. Yet, I've never been to Gunung Jerai which is located in Kedah, northern Malaysia. What brings the mountain to my attention is the "Save Gunung Jerai Campaign" (tag). Given that Gunung Jerai is as popular as Gunung Ledang, I was quite surprised to find out that former needs any saving at all.

Interested, I scoured the internet from more information and I was not disappointed. It was in the mainstream media a couple of days ago and I must've missed it entirely. And it turned out, this thing started a couple of years back, way back to 2001.

The problem at hand is a quarry. There is a quarry operating within the boundary of a forest reserve located nearby the mountain. Just like what happened in Selangor eh? According to the Star:

The state executive council made a decision on Sept 12, 2001, to surrender Compartment 16 of the forest reserve to quarry operator Syarikat Kemelong & Sankojaya Construction as "private property".

I'm not familiar with any related related regulation related to relabelling a section of a forest reserve as private property but it does sound fishy.

Apart from that, an activist even received a death threat from an unknown person. It won't take a rocket scientist to suspect that the person that made the threat might be related to beneficiaries of the quarry. More at Utusan; Sorry, it's in Malay:

Pegawai SAM terima ugutan bunuh

ALOR STAR 28 Jan. - Timbalan Setiausaha Kehormat Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), Mohd. Azmi Abdul Hamid mendakwa menerima ugutan bunuh daripada seseorang yang tidak dikenali yang dipercayai mempunyai kaitan dengan projek kuari batu di Gunung Jerai, Yan.

Menurut beliau, ugutan itu diterima melalui telefon oleh isterinya di rumah, Rabu lalu yang turut mengancam untuk menculik anak-anaknya.

According to the Star in the same report, the operator of the quarry is Syarikat Kemelong & Sankojaya Construction. There isn't too much information about the company online. The only related stuff comes from the Malaysian Department of Environment's website. According to the DOE's site, Glisten Environmental Consultants is the quarry operator's consultant. A search on "Glisten Environmental Consultants" on Google doesn't give anything interesting either. Or maybe, I'm just too lazy to find out more.

Malaysia Today reports that 12 non-governmental organizations are appealing to the sultan of Kedah to intervene and stop the operation of the quarry. Sorry, this too is in Malay.

Sultan Kedah dirayu selamatkan Gunung Jerai

Oleh Zulkilfi Mohamed

KEDAH: 12 Badan Bukan Kerajaan (NGO) merayu Sultan Kedah DYMM Sultan Abdul Halim Mu'adzam Shah, supaya campurtangan berhubung cadangan projek kuari di Kompartmen 16 Hutan Simpan Gunung Jerai yang menyebabkan kemusnahan kawasan serta bencana yang dialami penduduk setempat, akibat aktiviti pembalakan dan kerja-kerja tanah di kawasan terbabit.

Frankly, I doubt the sultan will do anything.

Lastly, a site offers a short introduction on the Save Gunung Jerai Campaign. They call it a press release but, whatever. And yeah, still in Malay.