KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 — Cameron Highlands, a popular weekend retreat for city slickers, is being stripped of its lush rainforest cover at a rapid pace, with the latest national audit reports released today recording its natural jungle greenery at only 82 per cent last year from 96 per cent previously.

Despite the Cameron Highlands District Local Plan allowing only 3 per cent of the district’s land for plantations between 2003 and 2015, surveys by the Remote Sensing Agency of Malaysia in 2012 showed that the actual areas being used is at a whopping 16 per cent.

The same goes for residential areas, where the actual area used — 2 per cent — is double that of the allocated area of just 1 per cent.

The highest increase in plantation areas was recorded in Pos Terisu, rising from 76.73 ha in 2009 to 180.9 ha in 2012, which was an increase of 135.76 per cent.

This was followed by Habu with an increase of 69.46 per cent, and Lembah Bertam at 64.48 per cent.

Residential areas rose the most in Ringlet, with an increase of 131.46 per cent to 3.97 ha, and in Kampung Raja at 68.2 per cent to 9.48 ha.

The auditors also discovered that vegetable farms on the slopes of Bukit Habu have encroached on forest reserves and deposited sediment in the man-made Ringlet Lake.

The lake gets its water from the upstream areas of Blue Valley, Kampung Raja, Kuala Terla and Robinson Falls through the Bertam River, and it supplies water to energy utility firm Tenaga Nasional Bhd’s generator station in Jor, Perak.

It was also estimated that the illegal encroachment of farm areas has caused close to RM1 million in losses for the Cameron Highlands District and Land Office from uncollected revenue.

The Malay Mail had reported this week that there are fewer tourists enjoying the cool environment of Cameron Highlands, despite the year-end school holiday season.

This follows the recent Bertam Valley mudslide in October, which claimed four lives and left more than 100 houses and vehicles destroyed.

Hotel operators also blamed over-development in the tourist area, saying the sight of barren hillslopes were disconcerting for tourists as they travelled through Cameron Highlands.