New resort has more wildlife than Danum

Sandakan: Eco-tourism buffs now have a new place to unwind and appreciate mother nature.The Forestry Department has opened a nature-oriented resort at a logged over area in Lahad Datu.

Department Director Datuk Sam Mannan said the resort was scheduled to be opened in three months and the department was negotiating with state-owned Yayasan Sabah to operate it.

Despite being located at a logged over area that has since been re-forested, he said the mid-range 40-room Kawag Riverside Lodge was surrounded by more wildlife than the pristine Danum Valley conservation area.

"You find more deer, tambadau or wild buffaloes and elephants in disturbed forests where food supply is more plentiful," he said at the department's headquarters here. Mannan said the resort was about an 80-minute drive from the Lahad Datu airport.

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He said the resort showed the success of the forest rehabilitation initiatives being undertaken by the department at the Ulu Segama-Malua region jointly with various entities including the Sime Darby Foundation, Yayasan Sabah and WWF.

Mannan said the opening of the resort was also another approach by the department to diversify its revenue sources in noting that timber royalties were declining.

"For the first time, from this year, the timber harvested from three plantations will overtake those from natural forests," he said. He said they were also allowing the cultivation of oil palm in certain logged-over areas as an interim measure to generate revenue. "Royalties from palm oil would help to pay for our department's operations," Mannan added.

On the rehabilitation efforts at Ulu Segama region where all 11 forest reserves had been classified as protection areas, he said these projects would ensure their survival.

"It is not about timber any more but to increase the quality of the forest, in terms of the canopy and fruit trees which are food sources for wildlife," he said.

Mannan added this was crucial in areas such as the 11,612ha Bukit Piton forest reserve north of Ulu Segama that was now home to about 300 orang utan that were boxed in the area by plantations and Sungai Segama.

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The Sime Darby Foundation was spending some RM25mil between 2009 and 2019 for the forest restoration works covering an area of some 5,400ha at Bukit Piton.

To date some 2,700ha had been planted with various species of canopy trees such as binuang, telisai, kapur and fruit trees including durian, rambutan and jackfruit.

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