1. Last week I attended the first ever academic symposium organised by the Faculty of Agro-industry and Natural Resources, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan. In his opening speech the Vice Chancellor, YBhg. Prof. Dato' Ir. Dr. Zainai Mohamad commented that that was the first symposium to be organised by the new university and many more were to come in future.
2. I was happy to participate and gave a Keynote address on, "Conservation of biodiversity in Malaysia" a subject that I loved to dwell and cajole especially to the young scientists who will take the conservation baton from the old ones one day. The plenary lectures were given by YBhg Dato' Dahalan Hj Taha, the ex-Deputy Director General, Forestry department Semenanjung Malaysia and En. Khairuddin the Director, Department of Environment, Kelantan.
3. As I had stated elsewhere almost 90% of the participants who presented their scientific papers either orally or by posters are young; they came from almost all local universities in Malaysia, including those from Universiti malaysia Sarawak, Kota Samarahan and research institutes.
4. The papers covered all aspects of natural resources from minerals, heavy metals in rivers to flora and fauna reflecting their current graduate research projects conducted for their respective degrees, MS and PhD in their respective universities. I must confesses their English need a lot of improvement, their presentation especially their coloured slides need great colour-sense improvements and their answers to questions and comments need a lot of improvements. I believe in investing in the young scientist to carry the torches in various disciplines but they have to improve. There is no excuses in saying their Thai or Indonesian friends spoke worst English than them.
5. I wish the best to them in their studies and in their future participation in the national conferences and symposia. If not for them who have been daring enough there shall be little progress in our scientific endevours.
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