I was first introduced to the nature of 'swamp' from the comic book - The Swampthing. It is scary and surely not a place I wanted to be.. Years gone by.. I entered and graduated from college, only then I realize this scary looking place; still scares me though.., is actually nice and beautiful, indeed..
What's change my perspective to this scary swamp? Surely not the frenly monster Swampthing but some mag and doc I watched and read over the college years.. And, my first visit to what is called black water swamp or peat swamp in northern Perak, is really an eye opener to me.. Beside its tea coloured, black in nature water, it is actually clean! Funny eh? It was love at first sight.. ;-) I never look back again..
Graduated in Botany in 1995, I decided I'm not going to botanize again.. Wanna make something different.. I wanna do something I don't really like to do as a student but I LOVE to do it when I was a just another kampung boy hails from Baling, Kedah.. In the past, stream behind my parent's house is so cleen, crystal clear water and full of fish! So, what is the best thing to do, than..??? No console, no pc no nothing fancy were invented in those days, but my days and sometimes nights full of excitement.. One of them is FISHING... Fish is plentiful.. It was those days..
Things change.. Mother Nature change a lot.. No more animal plowed the field.. No more mothers washing along the stream, no more kids swimming in the streams.. No more fish..? Well, not as many as it is in the yesteryears.. It's sad, sad things to know that many streams and rivers are badly polluted.. Hey.. Swamp..? I never imagine these hostile, dark ecosystems are highly divers in fish! Really, really diverse.. And they are beautiful, small in size but so colourful.. What else? I'll tell more..