Cameron Highlands, part of the Titiwangsa mountain range that forms the backbone of Peninsular Malaysia, lies between the states of Perak and Pahang.
It is a hill resort around 2,000m, with cool and pleasant temperatures of 15-23°C, offering a respite from the lowland equatorial heat.
It is a tourist destination for local and foreign visitors due to its invigorating cool aseptic air, trekking trails, and variety of tropical and temperate fruits, alongside horticultural farms producing vegetables and flowers.
These orchards and farms supply fruits and vegetables to the lowland towns and cities, as well as exporting to Singapore.
Another attraction is the tea plantations that straddle the undulating slopes of the hills. There are numerous hotels ranging from five-star to budget establishments to suit various budgets.
However, driving up and down Cameron Highlands is most trying and agonising, especially during weekends and school holidays when throngs of tourist buses, cars, and big bikers negotiate the meandering single carriage roads up the hills.
Haphazard parking in front of fruit stalls and shops creates bottlenecks in Brinchang and Tanah Rata towns, impeding traffic flow.
It takes two hours to reach the hill stations, and there is a dire need for the authorities to organise the traffic flow.
Notwithstanding these hassles, Cameron Highlands offers opportunities to commune with nature through its pristine rainforest, often shrouded in swirling mists that add a mysterious and sometimes surrealistic touch.
One major attraction is the 200-million-year-old Mossy or Cloud Forest, located in the Batu Gangan Permanent Forest Reserve, which spans an area of 914 hectares.
The Mossy Forest of Gunung Brincang is the second-highest peak in Cameron Highlands. According to the World Conservation Monitoring Centre’s database of cloud forests, the mossy cloud forest in Cameron Highlands is one of 54 in Malaysia.
Cloud Forest, or Water Forest, is a tropical or subtropical geographical physical feature.
It develops on the saddle-shaped ridge of mountains, such as in Cameron’s Mossy Forest, where moisture is trapped, allowing the mosses to thrive.
The climatic conditions required for the development of cloud forests are present here – the consistent presence of fog reduces evaporation, and moisture from fog drips promotes the development of high biomass and biodiversity of epiphytes (air plants).
These conditions create an ideal habitat for the flora and fauna unique to mossy forests.
The rich and diverse biodiversity includes ancient trees that host mosses, which in turn support other plants such as lichens, ferns, and orchids.
This ecosystem, which sustains aseptic mosses, consists of charophytes (green algae), angiosperms (melastoma or daun senduduk), gymnosperms (cycads or daun bogak), and bryophytes (mosses or lumut).
In addition, the cloud forests sustain a diverse set of montane creatures such as insects, snakes, frogs, birds, and mammals.
One requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle to negotiate the dirt track from Brinchang town to the foot of the mossy forest, passing through tea plantations and rainforests.
From the starting point, one ascends the damp, planked boardwalk into the fog-shrouded pristine wonderland of the mossy or cloud forest.
The aseptic air invigorates your respiratory system with the olfactive scent of flora as you traverse the meandering up and down of the boardwalk.
The cool breeze creates a cacophonous sound as it rustles through the trees and leaves. This combination of pristine natural elements creates a primeval ambience that energises both the physical and spiritual self.
The trees are covered with mosses on their trunks and branches, while tendrils hang down from their limbs. Ferns and other epiphytes sprawl around the trunks, and mosses and lichens carpet the ground, creating an ambience resplendent in its sublime beauty.
However, for the uninitiated, such a forest is simply a natural physical feature.
To them, the forests are merely leaves, trunks, and branches. They cannot fathom the connection between the forests (trees) and humans as an integral component of our existence.
The clearing of forests for plantations and horticulture, along with indiscriminate logging, has caused irreparable damage to the ecosystem. This contributes to climate change, which destroys both natural and man-made landscapes through flooding, landslides, and other disasters.
Lest we forget, our survival relies on forests, which serve as living entities providing habitat, food, and shelter for all of God’s creatures.
To preserve the wellbeing of human existence, we must protect the forest cover in the Cameron Highlands and the Titiwangsa Range.
The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the writer’s and do not necessarily represent that of Twentytwo13.
