Tanjong Tualang - An extensive wetland habitat

For several decades until 1980s, tin mining industry especially in the Kinta Valley played a key role as one of the major contributors to the Malaysian economy at that time.

I was one of those boys who grew up in the neighbourhood of tin-mining towns where most of my neighbours, relatives and childhood friends depend on tin-mines for a living.

Recently, my birding hobby had given me opportunities to visit such towns. They included Pusing, Sipueh, Tronoh, Batu Gajah, Tanjong Tualang, Gopeng, Malim Nawar, Kampar etc. The extensive sandy land between these towns and outside of the main roads are now hundreds or perhaps more than a thousand abandoned mining pools of various sizes. Some of these pools have been put into uses and converted into farms for fish, ducks and other livestock. These ponds and its vegetation form important habitat of extensive areas for many different species of wetland birds.

(Sept. 2018, Tanjong Tualang)

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