IN a few days, nine companies will be charged in court for damaging the environment around the Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam Agriculture Park. Local authorities would also lose their power to approve development projects in environmentally sensitive areas.

Seven of the companies would be charged with undertaking earthworks without prior approval from the city council.

Bad as the environmental degradation in Bukit Cahaya is, it is unfortunately not the only shocking instance of corporate greed raping the environment.

Such unconscionable destruction of the land to profit a few has gone on for far too long. In the process the soil is depleted, the scenery impoverished, the neighbourhood defiled and the health and safety of the people threatened.

Current fines for offences ranging from improper land clearance to lack of adequate drainage varies from RM2,000 to RM50,000. Given that developers make millions from a single project, these are paltry sums that need to be increased several times over.

The tough action initiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi just days ago is encouraging, but it needs to go farther. Other culpable parties which have committed similar offences must also be hauled up in court.

The near-indiscriminate felling of trees in so-called development projects must also be tightly controlled. Now that trees with at least six-inch diameter trunks must be preserved, a healthier environment and more imaginative landscaping should be on the cards.

The hypocrisy in some tree-planting exercises is summed up in projects that fell trees only to plant new ones after the “development”. This increases costs and delays completion time, besides replacing the stronger original trees with newer ones less rooted to the soil.

Apart from measures like more stringent environment impact assessment studies, project costing could also be revised to include environment costs from poorly managed sites. Once any project in an environmentally sensitive area is approved, the developer should be required to pay a substantial sum as refundable deposit in an environment account.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) should be poised to swoop on the questionable business of unlawful projects. If the errant developers did not have some assurance that enforcement officials would not pose a problem, would they have proceeded as they did?

An environment panel could also be formed to oversee certain projects, comprising the relevant government agencies, the ACA and suitable environmental NGOs. If developers conduct their business lawfully and have nothing to hide, they should not be averse to greater transparency.

For too long Malaysia has had a number of good environmental regulations, but effective enforcement remains a consistent problem.

Yet the lack of effective enforcement is tantamount to an absence of regulations, or even a criminal dereliction of duty by enforcement agencies.

The lack of proper enforcement can no longer be accepted as an explanation. Instead, it should be seen as the problem it is, requiring sound investigations to uncover the cause of the neglect.