hi. i'm dead to some. actually, feel like a zombie... moving without realizing bodily decay.

wanted to share... finished a 30x80ft 3 floor BH... took over from contractor halfway... total cost (just finished keying in bills for the last 2 months) approx RM252,960.10 (not inclusive of land, not inclusive of my personal claims... don't see the need since its mine). At 7200sqft... thats about RM35/sqft. Despite that... took much longer to finish (obviously because i'm no contractor, no exp, in short... dumb. cctv, mist, piping... installed myself. a visitor thought i was an indonesian worker). whatever it is... now legaaaaaa.

Recently went to Surabaya. Met Pak Fatih Marzuki. Met his son in law (post grad in swiftlet management of some sort). Didn't meet the daughter (post grad in swiftlet house structure if not mistaken). Went to his residence, bought some audio. When we think we know a lot... ,meeting people like him really gave me a wake up call. new knowledge. good visit. happy. didn't know drs arief budiman was one of his ex-students. no wonder there was similarity in their audio system.

Cergau's comments in the end of V2... yes... as long as the definition of wildlife is not changed in APHL76... theres nothing much we can do to counter PERHILITAN's jurisdiction. However... i'm happy to inform that the bumi bird house community have now grown more wary of the 1GP, redtape & potential problems that may arise from restrictive policies. some brother in arms are now doing their part voicing strongly opinions about the 1GP, government funding disbursed for the industry (agrobank now has millions, last i heard 49m for swiftlets) and PBT bylaws.

One such opinion was how Agrobank, as an appointed entity to disburse gov funds, should not use such stringent requirements. I know some are negotiable... bu 60% of value of land/property/collateral or 90% of cost of project (whichevers lower) is not facilitative. What they should do is (if they truely want to assist the industry) lower the collateral value... say 10-15% of loan to be taken. Say RM100,000... property or land valued at RM15,000 or FD or something equivalent should suffice. Just a pov. Bukan apa, most owners of BH are aged 50++, established people with money to spend. If they want the younger generation to get involved... this is one way. Old buggers (no offense uncles, the term is used passionately).

Another interesting meet... a bumi producer of birds nest products, mainly air sarang burung. Another thing lacking is assistance for BN products, the manufacturing side. They should abolish such permits for buying & selling. Processed BN drinks, don't really care about size... super A ke, sudut ke... doesn't make much difference. This is something new for me, those who are involved in manufacturing, kindly comment. Might be bringing some friends to the factory in Kedah. Want to match make B H owners with end product manufacturers. No hidden interest so far, just wanna make the industry more livelier, make friends and networking. During the 1st meet we started off debating the difference in quality between house & cave nests... when we realised it won't stop or be concluded even if we babbled for the whole day, we honorably stopped discussing that issue and respected each others view. haha! call me hardheaded.

Aeroswift... i think all know the story by now. Hard to resist saying 'i told you so'. What to do, by chance one of the participants made a report.

Will be active foruming again soon. Apologies to uncle cergau, ww, uncle Lee, CK, CWG and friends.

One nice thing i learned from surabaya (not sure if this is common knowledge or not) is about the piyik sounds or bunyi anak. There should be different sounds of different stages of baby birds. The reason... in nature.. some die due to cold, predators, lack of food. Hence some start growing at different stages thus difference in chirping. So naturally there should be different stages of baby sounds. This may also be a solution for houses that despite the internal environment being first class, the nest production is stagnant (maintaining at 300-400 nests for months/years). Burung kurang aman due to this lack. True or not... please comment. Just sharing.

Bobby C has a point. Uk has a 60million population, and only 500,000 (http://washminster.blogspot.com/2009/03/how-many-civil-servants-in-uk.html) civil servants. Comparatively, Malaysia has an estimated 1.2million (2009), at 27million population. An uncle from overseas jokingly said;

"Over there, for a project valued at 156million pounds, it takes 3 core people to manage it, but in Malaysia, they might form a special company (SPV) to control another company, a PMC and further sub the work to a dozen different c/o's. Efficiency isn't the government's policy".

I myself had a lousy experience with PBT... i had the intention of building a makeshift gerai/kiosk besides the main road... out of courtesy asked around the local PBT how i go about... the paperwork & requirements was equivalent to building a township... and the nice but irritating lady said; "Encik... borang-borang dan kelulusan ambil masa sekurang-kurangnya 6-8 bulan"....... WTF?! Are these people living in the stone ages? They don't use faxes/computers/emails/telephones??

The joke is... how many Malaysian civil servants does it take to change a light bulb? Ermm... can you come back and ask later,maybe next year? The person in charge of the person in charge of the particular department handling this particular subcommittee monitoring the relevant acting committee is on leave, and so are the other 30 related officers.

Another thing our politicians fail to notice are the daily leakages; unwarranted claims, lengthy breaks, CEREMONIAL stuff, superficial stuff... and why do agencies/institutions HAVE TO FINISH OFF ALLOCATIONS FOR THE YEAR??????????????? Other countries... tend to save, Malaysia tends to spend and spend and spend on so many unnecessary things. Forget about corruption for a while, try imagining IF a civil servant somehow claimed an extra unwarranted RM10 per month... thats quite a lot. Add on those wasteful ceremonial stuff. Now, imagine the government actually PAYING these people to do things they DON'T DO EFFICIENTLY (just assume... a job that can be effectively done by 3 people, the government is paying 10 to do). I believe this is the main source of Malaysia's monetary leakage (this was told by a close friend...).

My personal pov... this is an in bred culture cultivated thru years of practice. The civil servant culture, reflecting the political parties that govern. Want change? Change the federal government. The next government will be wary and not slack off. Then again, nothings for sure in politics.

I passed Bahau, Rompin, Muadzam. Man, these are the new hotspots! I haven't used that road for a year, maybe two... many, many BH's. I did hear rumors... many are invested by Singaporeans... PBT's might be a problem (towns). I believe these outside investors will spur the industry to a different level. But as usual... the red tape...

Took a vid clip of one BH which really got my attention (but security and courtesy reasons, takle la nak post. dont have consent). Happy to see more BH's.

If it was me, i'd draw a caricature of swiftlets holding forms lining up in front of counters manned by orangutans, chimpanzees and proboscis monkeys scratching their heads not knowing what to do.

RTM1 news just now, 'Sabah State Government Will Finalize State Guidelines On Swiftlets by the end of year'. Hmmm... assuming the 1GP will be out... it being a 'guideline', a general outline... so the state will have authority & custom rulings? Assuming so... might be good. Worse come to worse, blackmailing the existing state government (votes) sounds like a good idea.

Hehe... i think thats the real essence of the issue.

Some of the existing Acts (the date maybe lain since banyak pindaan);

Perhilitan
Akta Perlindungan Hidupan Liar 1976

MOH
Akta Pemusnahan Serangga Pembawa Penyakit 1975

PBT/State Gov
Akta Kerajaan Tempatan 1976
Akta Jalan Parit & Bangunan 2001
Akta Perkhidmatan Bomba 1988
Section 52, Kanun Tanah Negara 1965
Perisytiharan Warta Kerajaan Negeri (for whatever)

These i guess are just some. Personally, do you really think it would be easy to apply for permits/licensing... even when owners comply? We know how pbts are littered with corrupt officials and enforcement staff. In the first place, unless there is a 'Warta Kerajaan Negeri' or 'Akta Kecil' under PBT, they CANNOT so called kutip cukai premis burung walit or lesen perniagaan burung walit. At least thats what i understand (please correct me if i'm wrong). Lets say we don't infringe any laws or bylaws... they can't even compound us. The first round with my pbt, you can say i won. They resorted to a lame excuse 'menunggu kebenaran dari jabatan veterinar'. Have this new saying i use when dealing with pbt;

You tell me why, i will comply,
Try to lie, then you can go die.

Compounding to the existing non-facilitative acts... will be a 1GP that sucks. If we can at least get a FAIR 1GP, it'll be a boost of sorts... motivational. One... we will continue fighting hard for the sake of SSP's, push for amendments of acts. Two, we can pressure PBT's to be FACILITATIVE in view of the 1GP... since we have all figured out that it is the state government with the real mojo. Three, we can now reel in more and more members to enter associations (please note i am not implying any association... but choose a fair, rationale, one that takes care of members interest & the industry as well), the rationale... voting power. Black mail is the best resort (not applicable to other stuff mind you).

True. We know of these simple conspiracies. Since i am an anti-eco-park sort... maybe we should, as a very wise uncle advised, 'let rome burn' (but it sounded more like 'let putrajaya burn'). Assuming they do spend millions on eco-parks, even make legislation... 'zoning' permissible areas for BH structures, influence foreign/local investors to buy such lots/properties like this one;

http://www.swiftletecopark.com/english/our_projects.asp

biar je la. imagine 26 units of BHs in one spot. food source cukup eh? let them be. If they succeed, fine. If they don't, it'll be another black spot on the industries name.

Uncle Cergau, following up, just adding some links related;

http://www.newsabahtimes.com.my/nstweb/fullstory/39734

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsindex.php?id=507225

Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM), i equate to an old, grumpy 'out of touch' veteran of war. Ignorant of new developments, still living in the past. Using the same term by Mohd. Anwar Zazal,"preposterous & intolerable". It's preposterous these old geezers still use the health issue. There is no known case of zoonotic diseases due to AF. What does he mean by social issues???? The swiftlets selling drugs to teenagers? The swiftlets offering sex services to government officials? Heritage issues? This one is rather unique. I'd rather they make SSP's as PART OF THE HERITAGE ITSELF since it is an age old tradition among the Chinese. SAM's president is also an arse. Its 'intolerable' to see heads of such NGO's being so ignorant of the facts. Sakit hati sangat. Sama la macam YDP's for some PBT's. If SAM is leaning towards zoning of BH's... and the state government complies... that will be a big mistake. Zoning (like what Negri Sembilan is trying to implement) will only limit new potential BH owners, what.... semua orang ada tanah bersepah2? Zoning will only benefit those bloody eco-park guys.

I'm still wondering what they mean by 'the swiftlet industry posed a conflict to the World Heritage listing'. Can't they just spell it out and not use vague terms? They can stop the mushrooming of new BH's (which by the way... is still up to the state government), but they should not disturb existing ones. The new 1GP just might enforce this. Lets not sit silently in our comfort zone and think, " Ala... takde hal punya, its hard for them to enforce la!"... until they come knocking on your door.

Hi all. Watch out for thieves. Reminded a friend of mine (who drove around buying nests) about security. No such thing as being too careful. There is such a thing as being paranoid though.

1GP. Simply said... better than the old one, but not up to par of SSP's. Someone mentioned about it being open ended... that is true in a sense, and totally untrue otherwise. WW, you must know details of the Terengganu meet (26-28th). UNFORTUNATELY out of all the 7 PBT's, the most important one didn't participate fully, MPKT. Sitting in a room full of PBT officials was fun. Real fun and an eye opener of sorts.

The existing laws, we've listed them down before... some are enforced, and some are not. One PBT dared not take action against errant BH owners in town since PERHILITAN cautioned them about animal cruelty. But hey... Perhilitan wasn't mentioned at all in the 1GP... /gg
Another PBT luluskan all 18 submissions of BH's to be built. I mean... 18/18... if it were 15/18 ok la.... this is 100% approval rate. SO... to me this all shows us that..... even the PBT have no idea!!! So its subject to 'budi bicara'. The 2006/7 KPKT guideline is no longer valid. TPM already chaired the jawatankuasa KPKT. 3 years grace? To me its just buying time to study the aftermaths of a new 1GP. One thing for sure... even the PBT officials now laugh when someone mentions;' pindahkan operasi rumah burung walit'..... even they know its crazy talk.

1GP is just a guide. The reason it was left open ended was because... in the end, it is still the PBT's with the juice, the undang-undang kecil, acts and enforcement. DVS will just 'advise'. That is why... if a state enactment existed... it will 'facilitate' the industry. Now is the time for associations to educate PBT's (if the state DVS doesn't), educate the politicians (yes, kalau YB kata ok, most of the time PBT will follow suit) and the general population.

The National Policy is to facilitate the birds nest industry... i see they have somehow managed to do so bits and pieces based on the 1GP... no more perhilitan, that was the top most priority... but until they remove it from the APHL... still not safe. The jurisdiction of DVS & PBT is clear, the demarcation i mean. the specifics... blur as usual. The issue now lies with the PBT's (which are, by common stereotyped thinking, kind of biased and corrupt). There are many things in the 1GP that can be discussed... the 50/20 distance, definitions of 'kawasan pusat bandar', kawasan akitiviti ekonomi and etc2. All that doesn't mean shit when you get a stop work order or compound. Lets get creative and find other ways of spreading the SSP spirit.

This post has been edited by dunsuntutmybuntut: Oct 2 2010, 05:42 PM

Hehe, 'nudging' is appropriate for now. When the time comes, full force might be necessary, especially when some ridiculous requirements still exist in the 1GP. With more and more professionals involved in the industry, more feedback can be given. Voices of SSP's carry more weight. Opportunities for people to gain monetary profits more open. DVS has its own sample unit in PLV Jerangau. Birds already sleeping in, no nests as of yet. I think its about 15x20 or something like that, 2 stories. Costing more or less Rm20,000 or so. The industry is open to all. Lets see what happens this coming few months. I'm sure some major changes will follow soon.