Published on: Thursday, October 21, 2004 |
Kota Kinabalu: Biodiversity-rich Sabah is taking action to protect its natural heritage from manipulation by making it compulsory for all research by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to get prior approval from the State Government.
State Secretary, Datuk K.Y. Mustafa, said the move was to ensure only genuine research was allowed to be carried out in the state and to keep bio-pirates at bay.
We do not want to see abuse of our natural heritage by those with ulterior motives, those intending to steal from our biodiversity resources in the name of research, he said, Wednesday.
Mustafa said the issue was discussed at length at a meeting of permanent secretaries of state ministries in August this year.
At the meeting we agreed and decided that all ministries, departments, statutory bodies and agencies of the State and Federal governments should exercise control over NGOs conducting any form of research, particularly in Sabahs environment, he said.
Following the decision, all applications to conduct research must first be forwarded to the State Economic Planning Unit (UPEN) for prior approval.
UPEN would then forward the application to the Research and Internal Affairs Office of the Chief Ministers Department for further approval, he said.
The approval is entirely up to the State Government and the NGOs concerned must abide by the terms and conditions set out by the Government, he said.
This was to ensure Sabahs natural heritage was protected and the security of the State was not being compromised.
To ensure coordination, a circular on the matter was distributed last week to all state and Federal departments and agencies reminding them of the new requirement. - Bernama
