Published on: Thursday, October 30, 2003 |
Kota Kinabalu: Interior Sabah is designated for Adventure Tourism development under the Sabah Tourism Master Plan and the Crocker Range is located within that zone, said Mary Malangking of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment here Monday at the Tourism Workshop on Crocker Range Park.
The workshop, organised jointly by Sabah Parks and Japan International Co-operation Agency, agreed the Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world and found in abundance in the Crocker Range could easily become the flagship attraction but its Rafflesia Centre, the only one of its kind in the world, is unfortunately under-utilised and under-managed.
A participant called on the Forestry Department which has jurisdiction to surrender it to a more suitable agency to handle the Centre, if it is unable to make it more touristically productive.
Another participant said given frequent Rafflesia blooms within the area, the Rafflesia could easily make money.
On the present tourism situation in the 139,000-hectare Crocker Range Park, Paul Basintal, Sabah Parks Assistant Director, said although visitor numbers rose steadily from 90 in 2000 to 1,464 in 2002 and 1,653 so far this year, it is still a very small number.
It has a long way to go, when compared to more than 200,000 visitors to Kinabalu Park annually, he said, although the physical, fauna and flora assets are not bad, citing a number of newly completed JICA-assisted visitor and research centres such as the Keningau Nature Centre located at the Parks headquarters in Keningau, Inobong in Penampang and Mahua, Tambunan in addition to adventure trails such as the Salt Trail and others.
Fauna-wise, it has at least 110 species of mammals, including the Orang Utan, 260 species of birds, endemic species included, and a vast numbers of plant species.
We know the main purpose of gazetting the Crocker Range into a national park was to protect its water catchments but given that this is the largest park in Sabah, its tourism potential certainly has not been realised.
What I feel is that the area is suitable for wilderness experience and therefore very suitable for visitors who like solitude and challenge, he said.
Dr Jamili Nais, Head of Sabah Parks Research Division, who presented a paper on Sustainable Tourism Development In and Around the Crocker Range Areas, cited two wrong perceptions which may help adventure development in the Crocker Range. First, the idea that upmarket tourists are more beneficial and two, international tourists are better.
Studies have found actually the back-packers contribute more to local communities and hence the perception that they are cheap and spend little is not right. This is why for the Salt Trail, we should think back-packers.
The other problem is when people think of tourism, they immediately link to only foreigners.
The fact is local visitors generally comprise 80 per cent of visitations, as is the case with Kinabalu Park. This is why tourism development must remember this reality, he said.
However meagre though the tourist flow to the Crocker Range is at the moment, he was confident that products like the Salt Trail will rise to the occasion one day in the future, just like the thousand-kilometre long Great Appalachian Nature Trail in the US which now attracts hundreds of thousands of hardy trekkers.
Malangking said although tourism is ranked a priority sector in Sabah, development in environmentally fragile areas like the Cocker Range must take into account of stated sustainable objectives.
Some participants drew attention to apparent anomalies in the Papar District where big alienations of land amounting to 500 acres each, had taken place, despite a standing directive from the Land and Survey Department to the contrary.
Though twice the size of Singapore, the Crocker Range is in actual fact, dissected into three separate parts by two major trunk roads - the KK-Tambunan Highways and the gravel Ulu-Kimanis-Keningau road built in the 60s but soon to be sealed.
Rapid development of the area after the upgrading of this road is apprehensive for degradation of the environment and park ecosystem around the area, according to the paper entitled Tourism and Land Use Management on Kimanis-Keningau Road, presented by JICA advisor, Dr Massaki Yoneda .
For a long time, ecologists have expressed fears of genetic flows among the key animals in the park because of these separations.
The road isolates fragile forest ecosystems of the park. It cuts Orang Utan habitats, he said, citing the existence of about 150 Orang Utans in the area.
Shiego Sakai, another JICA advisor, remarked at the beginning of his paper entitled Community-Based Ecotourism Development Potential In and Around the Crocker Range: Dont cook the goose that lays the golden eggs!
He said eco-tourism is not a goal but a tool for many important objectives such as conservation awareness, community development, community participation and involvement, aimed at achieving sustainability, he noted.
The way forward is to build partnership under good institution arrangements between the private sector, government and non-government sector, such as donors, provide better services, by enhancing business skills and concept, human resource development, marketing sense, offer attractive eco-tourism products through facility development and packages and manage wastes and social impacts and conflicts intelligently, he said.
JICA Chief Technical Advisor, Takahisa Kusano, said the destiny of eco-tourism in the community sense will hinge on good local leadership.
He said effective leadership at the grass-roots level will make a decisive difference to its success.
As a park listed in the international category of national parks, Crocker Range Park has had very little visitors, its contribution to the public has not been well appreciated, its conservation has not been promoted and fundraising for its management to a sustainable level is limited.
Kusano said because of the absence of spectacular sceneries like Mt. Kinabalu Park and the possibility of easily spotting animals as is the case in the Kinabatangan Sanctuary, Crocker Range Park may not be ideal for common tourism but scientific and educational tourism can be promoted for reasons of accessibility and richness in biodiversity.
