Start of 1st River Ranger in Malaysia

Global Environment Centre, a non-profit environment NGO has initiated a River Ranger Programme within the “Community Participation in River Management” and our school has been chosen to be the pilot school in Malaysia with funding assistant from DANIDA amounting RM 10 thousand. (Danish International Development Agency) through River Care Fund under GEC in 2005.

The aim of this River Ranger Programme is to create awareness and educate schools and students on river issues and the importance of managing our rivers. In return , it is hoped that students will get a better understanding of the river systems and care and appreciate the value of a river. Only then our rivers would be taken care of and our source of water be safe guarded for the future generations to come.

28 students of equal gender and 4 teachers were selected and trained by the officers of Global Environment Centre according to the programme’s module on how to be a River Ranger on 18 september 2005.Using a training module , the students covered topics on river and river issues , river basin problems , integrated river basin management and hands on training. In the hands-on training , the students will be taken to the rivers to carry out water quality testing using physical , chemical and biological monitoring using living animals in the river. The students are taught to carry out river mapping and river health check activities to assess the health of the river.

Upon completing the modules , they would be given a certificate of recognition and they would be a fully certified as River Ranger to carry out river monitoring in their area. Our school also were the first one to set up a ‘Guru River Ranger’ group which consists of trained River Ranger teachers whom now have trained other school groups whom are interested in starting their own River Ranger group. To date , we have helped to train over 50 schools in Kedah State and about 200 teachers.

A One Stop River Education Centre has been established by the school with help of many partners. The centre is being used as a resource centre for information materials related to rivers and water management. It was a really a successful project.

Students of our school are taught to love their rivers as an awareness programme created by the school to teach them to preserve the environment. Through this programme we hope that the students when they grew up will be more committed in protecting their surroundings.