Heritage bid to be pursued

Kota Kinabalu: The State Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry is adamant in attaining World Heritage status for its proposed joint sites of Danum Valley, Maliau Basin and Imbak Canyon.Its Minister, Datuk Masidi Manjun, said in spite of new pre-requirements introduced by Unesco which made the process tougher, the move could still be done.

"We have to look at things beyond our time. Its for our younger generation to appreciate what we have, even after we have long gone," he said during the DaMaI second round-table discussions at Shangri-La's Tanjung Aru Resort, Tuesday.

The discussions were also attended by the Department of National Heritage Director-General, Assoc Prof. Datuk Paduka Siti Zurina Abdul Majid.

Her department is the Federal Government entity, which would endorse the discussion outcome, which would be drafted as a dossier and forwarded along with a tentative list to the World Heritage Committee, based in Paris.

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The department's nod is crucial as a sign of the Government's support to the move. "The process of obtaining the status is a long process at least with the attendance of Siti she could point us into the right direction," Masidi said.

However, he said the proposed sites are still facing a lot of technical issues and that there would be no listing until 2015.

Masidi said the World Heritage Committee is also congested with a lot of other nations wanting to have their sites included in the status.

Siti, meanwhile, clarified that the DaMaI site will not come under the jurisdiction of the department and would not partake in its management.

This is part of the fact that one of the pre-requirements for a World Heritage Status proposal is that the sites need to have National Park Status.

"It should not be a problem. We don't even manage the sites.

The National Park Status is only a tag, we have so far accredited the sites," she said.

Earlier, Siti explained that to obtain the status was also an expensive affair, to which Masidi said the State Government was willing to fork out the sum.

The DaMai sites come under the management of Sabah Foundation, the State Government sole concessionaire for 28 years.

The three sites are in a class one forest reserve which total land size of 132, 640ha. To date, there has been two round-table discussions were held over the proposal of making DaMai as World Heritage, with the first one held last May 13.

The second round-table session, held Tuesday, aims to finalise the Tentative list and submit it to National Heritage Department.

Malaysia currently has four World Heritage Sites namely, Kinabalu National Park, Mulu National Park , Lenggong Valley, which was listed under natural, while Melaka and Georgetown Penang, listed under cultural.

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To date, there are a total of 962 world heritage sites worldwide with 69 per cent of them listed under cultural, while 20 per cent comes under nature.

It was previously reported that Siti's department wanted the sites to be under Federal care as a condition for attaining the status and that this was opposed by the State Government as this would be going against the Malaysia Agreement which held that all lands are under State jurisdiction.

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