BFM, Evening Edition | Making Community Gardens Work

BFM segment

In yesterday evening's Inside Story, BFM's Lee Chwi Lynn and Sharmilla Ganesan discussed community gardens in the wake of the eviction notice issued against Kebun-Kebun Bangsar by the Land Administrator of Kuala Lumpur.

They speak firstly with Jia Yaw on the laws relating to community gardens and then with Shao-Lyn Low of Eats, Shoots & Roots on establishing community gardens.

Jia Yaw emphasised on the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and our nation's (together with 192 other countries) commitment to achieving them by 2030. Hence, all government agencies, including the Kuala Lumpur City Hall and the Land Administrator's Department need to translate the SDGs (and their indicators and targets) into their respective work flows and SOPs. You can listen to the interview in the link below.

Sidebar: Colonial effect alert

We mustn't forget that we have inherited our land laws from our colonial masters - the laws they used to exert dominion over our lands and imperium over our peoples. The imaginary concept of absolute ownership over a discrete piece of land was forcibly imposed over our pre-existing adats, so that our lands, and the treasures they held, could be inventorised and commodified. In so doing, human relationships were severed and our understanding of how we relate with the environment mutilated. Yes, we are still perpetuating these legacy systems today. We desperately need deep reforms.

Postscript: Exposing major gaps in localising the SDGs

At a national level meeting on 30th June 2022, Jia Yaw raised the example of the eviction notice and threatened demolition of Kebun-Kebun Bangsar to discuss the systemic gaps we have in our government's drive to localise the SDGs.

This was at the Pre-HLPF Meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The HLPF (High Level Political Forum) is the main United Nations platform to follow up on all countries' progress on the SDGs. It will be happening in New York on 5 - 15 July. This afternoon's event was a preliminary meeting, ahead of the HLPF, between the key

ministries, agencies, UN (Resident Coordinator, Ms. Karima El Korri), APPGM-SDG members of parliament (YB Dato Sri Rohani Abdul Karim and YB Maria Chin Abdullah), CSO leaders and subject matter experts, with public participants joining us over Zoom. Jia Yaw was there on behalf of the Malaysian CSO-SDG Alliance.