COMMENT | When greed takes over

COMMENT | In 2014, my friend Ute M from Germany, arrived in Malaysia. We had been working together for quite some time and agreed to embark on a new project called World Magazine.

World Magazine was a documentary project where we gathered stories with good content from around the world, seen from children’s perspectives. With great material like child slavery in the Middle East, the war in Syria and daily life in Africa, it was my turn to pitch a story from Malaysia.

Our documentary revolved around Sutera, a 12-year-old girl from the Temiah tribe, living in a village called Kampung Kelaik in Gua Musang, Kelantan.

Sutera’s village is situated near a 130-million-year-old rainforest, among the oldest in the world. Her family have been living there for many generations. As such, they have developed a special bond with the land.

Upon arriving at Kampung Kelaik, Sutera’s uncle called Angah and a few villagers took us to a palm oil plantation surrounding their village. It was massive. As far as my eyes could see, there were hundreds of acres of oil palm trees.

For a second, I felt proud knowing our country was the second-largest producer of palm oil. But Angah knocked some sense back into me when he told me...