Eco Park is a competition itself . by building more than 50 houses in a remote area, how can the bird pick the houses to live in. and 50 BH in one vicinity can cause more harm to the environment and also to the birds if anything happen. Moreover , if u buy the wrong plot of land, can the agent refund back the money since the BH may cost from RM 700K to over a million. Here, the agents were dead rich and making your profits in the first five years or 8 years before we as investor able to reap the fruits. I wonder in 8 years time, will the bird population will change and the grade will lose out. this is something the eco park agent didnt tell u.

Dear aeiou228,
Pls share-lah, why difficult to apply? Timer problem? Need 85% ALL the time?
If it is to be limited to current practice for discussion, can't contribute -lah, got no BH experience.
Maybe there is an element of prevention here as after you've found a 'safe' (from health perspective) way to clean it,  you still have to prevent recurrence? No?

My apologies I may have gone off tangent. Out of habit-lah, when brainstorming & thru practice, I do not make a conscious decision of what can or cannot. I just say what comes to mind, the more outlandish the better. List them all down and each of us look at the pts no matter how silly at 1st impression, we assume each pt works and discuss the implementation. The idea is to make a silly suggestion work. Sometimes it's known as a guided way to thinking out of the box. Works better with people unrelated to the subject matter.
If that is not what you meant, I misunderstood.

I'll jump in if no BH specific knowlege applies.

For my benefit, do yr walls near the NP with fungi have the fungi?

Sifus,
I humbly seek your comments on my proposed BH design.
Thank you in advance.

Greenacres,

Guilty as charged.

btw, I have commented on the Najib's 1Malaysia blog under the tag 'Budget', so I will wait to see if it get's moderator approved.
If so, then I leave to all here to comment further. The comment space is regulated, so I had to sound abrupt but hopefully coherent.
http://www.1malaysia.com.my/index.php?opti...ang=en#comments
He mentioned that he was thrilled to get 600+ comments post the budget presentation.
How desperate are we??? Maybe 1000+ comments?? 
To be effective it has to be before the Cabinet discussion (which date I do not know) , so do yr bit..let it be like a DDOS attack.

This was to be the full text but I had to edit on the fly and I did not copy the final cut for records and I cant recall (old chap mah!)
Dear Mr PM,
I humbly bring to your attention as a 3 decade tax payer the disappointing results of at least 1 item of the 2010 budget. (As a citizen who has his head at the grinding stone for so many years but has not yet developed friends in the proper places to bring this to your attention and thus through this channel I am aware of.) Your attention is most appreciated now as to nip this in the bud before the repurcussions may just prove to be widespread unhappiness and still yet another distraction from more important matters of state.
It relates to and I quote from your budget speech the following

"ADVANCING AGRICULTURE SECTOR
Fourth:    Develop food farming industry such as fruits, vegetables, organic farming, herbs, seaweeds and swiftlet nests with an allocation of RM149 million;"

My writing to your goodself pertains to the swiftlet nest industry.
Various workshops were held by govt agencies with participants from the existing industry players.
Despite their input the draft guidelines to develop the industry has now appear to a whole litany of regulations with emphasis on control and licensing by the different govt agencies.
These appear to be self serving and runs counter to the published objective of...to quote Bernama release
"growth to 100,000 birdhouses  producing 500 tonnes of edible bird nest annually  worth RM5billion by year 2020"

The 1GP (the said guidelines) has the following as it's objective and I quote.."
2 OBJECTIF
2.1 Untuk memastikan perkembangan industri sarang burung layang - layang di negara ini ·terkawalserta mematuhi perundangan dan peraturan semua agensi kerajaan yang berkaitan dengan industri ini.
2.2 Untuk memastikan aktiviti pengambilan sarang burung layang - layang tidak akan menjejaskan populasi semulajadi burung layang - layang. tersebut.:
2.3 Mengawal dan menyelaras pengambilan sarang burung layang - layang agar ianya dijalankan secara lestari. "

It obviously is off the mark in terms of a national objective.
As for the allocated money to be spent to 'develop' the industry, there is no stated desire nor plan to work out common industrial problems faced either technical, health, specie specfic research, market access...etc.
As it stands now, the sums are to be given out to successful 'applicants' to build swiftlet farms. Nary a person in the industry seem to have a clue of how and when these applications were offered. Also the failure rate for this industry is topping 80%. Also 'swiftlet farming' is a misnomer. This trade is more akin to apiculture. We do not have a glowing record on apiculture to boast of.

As for the guidelines per se, it is too tedious for this channel and also will be sighted soon enough for cabinet discussion this week.

Suffice to say that the guidelines as unclear and incoherent as it stand in the draft, it is estimated 80% of existing 'farms' will be hard pressed to comply and will eventually have to close. Let alone what unclear,subjective and opague guidelines breed for those compliant.

That's RM1billion in foreign exchange and maybe the same amount of capital investment lost by small time investors from their life savings and retirement fund lost to short sighted and misguided guidelines. (no pun intended).

I again seek you indulgence to nip this in the bud and I offer my service and I am sure many of my fellow small time players to help revisit this guideline if you so desire and direct.

It is my sincere hope that this forum is to educate fellow Malaysian on the art and science of swiftlets sanctuaries and since now, there are critical and more urgent matter to address to first like whether we can last thru the storm.

With these in mind, we should not be pro BN nor pro opposition here but all pro swiftlets  for our own survivors, our swiftlets plus our country future as well. We all may be of difference in politic but in swiftlets concerned, I think that we are all for the swiftlets, may it be in town, in agriculture land or Eco and although Eco was never friendly to us before but hopefully, they will come to their senses that without us in town and agriculture land, they would fail badly!!!!!

I truly hope that the Eco men will support us from now so as  to have some changes to fulfill their own ambition of a bigger scale.  Like Dr. M once said; "when we were in trouble, no matter if it's a white or black cat, if it catches rats, it is a good cat". So, let us do the same, all united with only one goal, to save the industry by putting our personal feelings and agendas aside........Love you all but love the swiftlets more!!!!!!

Sorry to say that I still haven't got any feedback from my source and maybe, some here do have and if so, pls. share so all may sleep well tonight. God bless you all and may all my wrongs be forgiven.

ps. we are not just burning our anger and frustration here and doing nothing but to let the world know that we are facing a crisis here and that the authorities also do read it here and that they should know that we, the protectors of swiftlets are against the GP1. Internet is the best venue, I believe.

"If it's a I have checked out that the alleged Draft 1GP that in my opinion it is a hoax. It was totally different from what we resolved in the Seramban Workshop. The actual one is still undergoing the finalization stage. Sound like from DL, isn't it?????"""""""""""""
If it's a HOAX!!!!! shit and double bird shit, don't we all look stupid, I don't know you all but I do........look like what we have proposed, compromised and agreed to @ Seremban Workshop may still stand, Alhamduellah............

Don't worry cos if the they take the Seremban's proposals, most of us will be happy with exception of a few like those who like loud music, window types entrance and residential area. With the Seremban's proposals, at least we will survive with our BHs intact with least damages and losses. Don't blame me as I wasn't invited to the second workshop and even the first workshop, I was smuggled in by DL and I was glad that I did cos I did very well there and have no regret and my swiftlets will be proud of me.

Happy Tiger's Year, everyone @ Forum....

Lucas 1,
Well said.

to add,
if the final guidelines appear favorable, then give credit when credit due to the folks working with the authorities-lah.
For those who wish to show remorse, then will be the time to show it in both body and spirit (bottled ones, single malt).
And sing their praises just as loud as when you gave them hell.

---

Added on March 2, 2010, 11:36 pm
Agreed.
We need changes.
Me thinks they need to be kept at the back burners as wishes for now (important nevertheless).
Now we need to attend to the necessities for survival. (urgent)
Some prefer to align the stars

You set up a BH at a spot that was available but not the best available.
("Zero tenants for 4 years before I started this venture")
As what I hv learnt here, and in some circles known as an organic growth.
If you had started at a spot with heavy bird traffic you would hv acquired market share thru an unfriendly acquisition.

Gold takes eons to form and finite at a point in time
Birds are not

As Yoda would say
1)Overall bird population decline as they age and die....they will not
2)Avian reproduction in decline ...they are not
3)Caning introduced for bird sex..they have not

Luke Skywalker's intepretation.
It's unlikely your birds are not reproducing!!!
Unless they are abstaining (willfully or otherwise)

(No offence, cant help it, my wife must have put something strong in my tobacco)

Seriously why dun u consider getting on the horse and check out the new frontiers.
I can loan u my test kit!! (BYOS, bring yr own sound)

My apologies if anyone felt I was belittling Greenacres.
It is not my place.
He was here to share his grieve
I can
1)agree and add mine on to deepen his grieve
(I can rant as well as anyone when the mood takes me n got benefit of years to accumulate them gripes  )
2)stay above and offer a possible solution
I chose 2 and I dun apologies for that, only for my lousy writing skills that led to yr misunderstanding.

If u had read my proposed press release posted hereabout.
You will realise what my sentiments are on such matters (his and yours).
Elaborating on ways and means would certainly crash the thread.
May I suggest Malaysia Today, M Kini, M Insider, NutGraph?
I chose to keep the peace here and talk swiftlet.
No apologies here either 

Close but not there yet.
A clue...
What you described is foreplay to the answer.

With the proposed amendment of Animal Protection law where minimum ONE Year Jail term for offender : these few buggers and their BOSS should be chain n bring to the court for Justice !!!.

Still remember this ? :




Those who proposed to the GOVT to demolish/ dismantle / move/ ban Town shop Sanctuary and those who Help/Suggest To the govt to close all grd floor farm should also be proud of ur doing.

You should copy all these photo's and make it into a Calender and shows it to your childrens, grand childrens, and great grand childrens what good deeds u have done !.
Moving ?? Shut Down ???
while u can said it so easy, why not u come down to our place where we have quite a few farms with grd floor alone have over few thousands birds. We can pay for ur transportation expenses and ur accommodation cost.

You can come down and show us how to close it down !. How to kill thousands of young chics, juvenile birds and thousands of adult birds.

---

Added on April 25, 2010, 6:01 pmWhile we, keepers, do our part in maintaining our sanctuaries in good condition, such as this keeper in melaka where new coat of paint is applied to the old building.

and just a few block away, a rotten old building :

Wonder which one will tourists prefer?