Video | Development ravages Malaysia's 'Little England'
Illegal farms covered in unsightly plastic sheeting stretch into the distance along the steep slopes of the Cameron Highlands as bulldozers mow down nearby forests
On a Malaysian ridge-top, R. Ramakrishnan scans a rugged landscape famed in British colonial times as a fresh-aired slice of England in the tropics, but he sees a paradise lost.
Illegal farms covered in unsightly plastic sheeting stretch into the distance along the steep slopes of the Cameron Highlands as bulldozers mow down nearby forests.
“Everyone is grabbing land. There is a free-for-all,” the local environmental activist said as chainsaws growled.
Perched more than 1,000 metres high on Malaysia’s central spine, the Cameron Highlands emerged as the country’s first tourist destination during early-20th-century British rule.
Known by some as a “Little England”, it was beloved by homesick colonials who presided over afternoon tea or a few gin and tonics amid its cool air, lush gardens, and arresting tea-plantation vistas.
Colonial architecture still graces a region that is Malaysia’s main domestic source of temperate-zone crops like strawberries and apples and a habitat for flora and fauna including the severely endangered Malayan Tiger.
