PHT: Nay to more time for breeders

Friday December 25, 2009
The Star
By WINNIE YEOH


THE one-year extension given to swiftlet breeders in Penang to continue their operation until next December will jeopardise George Town’s heritage status and its living heritage.

Penang Heritage Trust (PHT) president Khoo Salma Nasution said the state government’s decision to extend the moratorium on the breeders would be a breach of Unesco’s heritage management guidelines as building guidelines and by-laws would be violated.

She explained that a swiftlet breeding house required the gutting of its interior that would destroy the heritage quality.

It was reported recently that the state executive council made the decision in its meeting on Dec 16.

Picture above: file photo of swiftlets returning to roost at dusk in a pre-war building in Penang.

Cultural Heritage Advisory Team educationist Janet Pillai said a research conducted by Universiti Sains Malaysia and PHT showed that there were some 141 swiftlet breeding houses in the heritage core zone.

“These numbers do not include those in the buffer zone,” she said.

“Of the 141, 116 are heritage shophouses, 23 commercial buildings and two of unknown status.

“Only 26 are operating with licences and from October last year to this October, the Penang Municipal Council’s Building Department had issued 30 notices.

“There were eight proposals to demolish the illegal structures but only two were demolished,” she said.

She added that a report complete with statistics would be sent to the state and the National Heritage Department.

Pillai said the breeding houses usually required indoor pools to maintain humidity. This posed a serious dengue threat from mosquitos breeding in the pools while the noise from electrical tweeters was a nuisance.

Also, rodents and vermins thrived in such an environment.

“A harvest from an active bird house could rake in about RM30,000 each time,” she added.