Totally protected areas in Sarawak to reach a million hectares soon

Vanes Devindran The Star 21 Jul 10;

SARAWAK looks set to achieve its target of one million hectares of totally protected areas (TPAs) in the near future.

So far, it has 750,000ha of land-based and water-based TPAs comprising 31 national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, nature reserves and marine parks.

The latest gazetted TPAs include the Maludam National Park at Saratok, Bengoh Range, Krian Mangrove in Bau, Sedilu Forest Reserve and Pelagus.

“Our target is to secure one million hectares of TPAs which constitutes about 8% of the state’s land mass and we intend to achieve this in the near future,” Sarawak Forestry Corporation managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Len Talif Salleh told reporters during a media familiarisation trip at Tanjung Datu National Park near Kuching.

However, Len said that conservation was not cheap.

While the state was working on securing more areas, they did not generate good economic returns, he added.

On the Tanjung Datu National Park, Len said that Sarawak Forestry would begin intensifying its promotions once its customer service centre at the park became operational by the end of the year.

He said the centre, which cost RM4mil, was to be completed by the end of this month and would serve as an information and research base for the park.

He believed that Tanjung Datu would be an interesting place to visit for researchers and students since it was known to among the most beautiful national parks in Sarawak.

Located at the western-most tip of Sarawak, the park offered an abundance of biodiversity on land and sea, he said.

Tanjung Datu had seven of the eight hornbill species, including the rhinoceros hornbill, he said.