from Clean Malaysia
Sarawak is moving ahead with plans to better protect the state’s forests and wildlife. Good news? Definitely.
Step 1: Come January next year, the Borneo state will have its own Department of National Parks and Wildlife. The new department’s tasks will include conserving local wildlife and rolling back illegal hunting, wildlife trafficking and bush meat selling. The department, says Sapuan Ahamad, director of Sarawak’s Forestry Department “will in particular look after orangutans and the growing threat to humans from crocodiles threatened by food shortage and increasingly polluted rivers.”
Step 2: By 2020, the state will create several new totally protected areas (TPAs), totaling 1.3 million hectares. “We are in the process of creating another 31 new TPAs with a combined area of 451,819 hectares and the new department can play its part here,” Sapuan said. That the department should definitely do.
“We have since July 2016 gazetted a total area of 903,769 hectares comprising 43 national parks (694,770 hectares), 14 natural reserves (2,539 hectares) and six wildlife sanctuaries (206,460 hectares),” the director explained. At the moment there are 30 National Parks, four Wildlife Sanctuaries and 10 nature reserves in Sarawak covering 602,035.8 hectares on land. The newly protected areas have already come to encompass all of Sarawak’s orangutan habitats, providing better protection to resident primates: Batang Ai National Park, Ulu Sebuyau National Park, Sedilu National Park, and the Lanjak Entimau Wild Life Sanctuary.
This excerpt from an online article appeared in and is courtesy of Clean Malaysia and can be read in its entirety here.