100,000 visitors come to see Sabah wildlife every year

KOTA KINABALU: Businesses are encouraged to harness the opportunities to work with wildlife and make a profit at the same time by establishing educational self-financing wildlife centres in Sabah.

Assistant Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Pang Yuk Ming said Sabah attracted over 100,000 visitors a year who come here to see the wildlife in the State.

“Wildlife is an important attraction for the tourism industry in Sabah.

“The whole world, especially from Europe, China and Japan, come to Sabah specifically to see for themselves the animals and mammals in the wild.”

He said the mammals in Sabah were not only part of our heritage and worth preserving, they also provided a large income and many jobs in hotels, airlines and travel companies from wildlife-related tourism.

Pang said there were many opportunities for businesses to contribute to wildlife conservation and still make a profit.
For instance, the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary near Sandakan is run as a business but also helps to preserve wildlife and to attract tourists, he said.

“Whilst the population of proboscis monkeys is declining in most parts of Borneo, at Labuk Bay the proboscis population is steadily increasing as well as attracting an increasing number of overseas tourists.

“So it is a win-win situation for all concerned,” he said when officiating at the launching of a book entitled Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Mammals of Borneo and Their Econology’, authored by Quentin Phillipps and Karen Phillipps, here yesterday. The book is published by Natural History Publications (Borneo).

In addition, he said there were large areas of mangrove habitat suitable for proboscis monkeys near the Nexus and Rasa Ria Resorts near Tuaran, where the monkeys could be re-introduced to the habitat to expand their population as well as promoting a conservation message to tourists and local visitors.

Citing another example, Pang said the recently opened Bornean Sun Bear Centre, an NGO founded by Wong Siew Te was helping to rehabilitate sun bears which have been kept illegally as pets.

“Most of their income comes from visitor’s fees of both local and international tourists.

“Not only does this project help rescue sun bears from being kept in bad conditions, it also helps educate the public about the need to protect wildlife and forest ecology.”

Although many tourists come to Sabah to areas such as the Kinabatangan and Danum Valley where wildlife was tame and abundant, Pang said there still remained many further opportunities for businesses to make wildlife easier to see and to educate visitors at the same time.

“I would encourage all people here who are involved in tourism-related businesses to think more widely and look for examples of successful wildlife educational projects in other countries such as the pangolin centre in Vietnam and the Tarsier Centre on the island of Bohol in the Philippines.”

On another note, Pang said tourists come to Sabah because the wildlife here were relatively tame and abundant.
“Many of the wildlife in Borneo is endemic to Borneo. The total number of land mammals in Borneo is 247 of which 63 or 23 per cent are endemic.”

Borneo endemic mammals include the Bornean pygmy elephant, Borneo Orangutan, proboscis monkey, Red Langur, Grey Sabah Langur and smaller mammals including rats, bats, squirrels and slow loris.

On the book, the Phillipps’ Field Guide to the Mammals of Borneo and Their Ecology is the second field guide published about the mammals of Borneo. The first one, A field Guide to the Mammals of Borneo, co-authored by Datuk Dr Junaidi Payne and Dr Charles Francis accompanied by Karen Phillipps’ illustrations, was published by The Sabah Society in 1985.

Pang said the long-awaited field guide showed the significance of wildlife in Sabah and their uniqueness, such as the proboscis monkey and Bornean elephant.

“We hope that the publication will help us promote Sabah as a haven for wildlife to the people in Malaysia and the world.”

Also present were Natural History Publications (Borneo) managing director Datuk C.L. Chan and Quentin Phillipps.

Source: Borneo Post