KUCHING: Over the years, media coverage in the form of reports, features and documentaries have all contributed to greater public awareness of the environment and rivers in particular, said The Borneo Post’s regional chief editor M Rajah.

“Newspapers, for example, have been vital in supporting awareness programmes as well as highlighting news that are crucial and beneficial to river rehabilitation,” he said in the forward of ‘Reflections From Sarawak’s Rivers’, a coffee table book which explores the intricate links between Sarawak’s rivers and its people.

Rajah said through the media, the good and the bad were reported for the sake of posterity and for making the earth a better place to live in.

Just as good things done to the rivers are reported, so are matters deemed detrimental to the environment such as indiscriminate and uncontrolled polluting of the fragile waterways as well as other natural or man-caused damage to the ecosystem, he elaborated.

Since the late 70s, the importance of river systems had been increasingly debated and highlighted in the media, thus the people had been progressively made more aware of the importance of sustaining the purity, quality and life of our network of rivers, he said.

Despite having better land and air transportation system nowadays, Rajah said rivers would continue to be important to many particularly rural dwellers in a vast and geographically-challenged state like Sarawak.

“Rivers are still the lifeline for many people especially those living in interior parts where roads are lacking and waterways are the only means for transportation of passengers and goods,” he said.

In Sarawak, rivers became sources for generating hydroelectricity and Malaysia’s largest and tallest hydro electric project, the Bakun Hydro Electric Dam is located in the upper Batang Rajang, he said.

Besides, he said, rivers were increasingly becoming preferred destinations for tourists who enjoyed nature at its best or adventurous rides along rapids in the pristine jungle where roads don’t exist.

As such, he added that these provided all the reasons for everyone including the media to do their part in preserving and conserving rivers.