RM50,000 fine if river encroached

Keningau: A fine of RM50,000 or imprisonment of up to two years awaits anyone found encroaching a tagal area, warned Tagal Sungai Kg Senagang chairman, Mathius Daud.

“We have a law that can drag you to face justice,” he told reporters when commenting on the increasing trespassing at the tagal or regulated community-based traditional freshwater fish rearing system areas. Sungai Senagang had been made into the fish rearing system since 2011, under the Customs Act and Inland Fisheries and Aquaculture Enactment 2003.

There have been four trespassing cases, three of them committed by the villagers themselves and another by residents from outside the village.

Daud said the system made at Sungai Senagang was an initiative to integrate it as a tourism product that can be profitable to the locals.

“We want the aquatic life in the river to become a tourist attraction,” he explained.

The Sungai Senagang tagal is expected to be open to residents for harvesting in August.

Source: Daily Express