The bridge and Lingham’s untold story

Published on: Sunday, January 15, 2017

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By Kan Yaw Chong
THE heated battle over the Sukau Bridge generated a lot of bad blood.

Conservators fought against it for a permanent future of iconic wildlife.

Local YB Saidi Abdul Rahman fought the voting remote villagers’ healthcare and security.

But, in the end, bridge proponents won, conservators lost. The Federal funded RM200m bridge and highway has won, if pictures of deforestation site preparation to store the lucky contractor’s heavy machinery and a small office building published on Daily Express’ January 14 front page is anything to go by.

This leaves the conservation camp begging for one last weak right and option, if it is recognised right at all: “Before you start, please give me and everybody the opportunity to look at the EIA, please wait, please hang on, we are the stakeholders, I am a Sabahan, I am born here, I will die here,” pleaded Datuk Wilfred Lingham, former Permanent Secretary to the then Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Development.

He was the very man who first hatched the idea of a 60,000-hectare Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in the early 90s which reduced to 28,000 hectres in the end.

From days of power to plea to be heard

A bit of a sorry state for a once man-of-power who in 1992 faced a threat on Day One when a developer suddenly descended with chainsaws roaring on a plan to hack down the entire forest from the bank of the Menangol River to the next oxbow lake far upstream.

But then armed with Statutory power of the State on his hand, Lingham responded to a news report which this writer was involved, flew down to Sukau the next day by helicopter and ordered the oil palm planter get out and, in addition, cancelled the license of a new sawmill under construction right at the mouth of the Menangol River!

That is a little known act of the State in the hey days of Sabah which saved the intended purpose to raise Sukau as a world renowned mega wildlife-based ecotourism destination.

That’s the hidden historical background to why the Daily Express asked Lingham last Friday: ‘How to you feel?’ after the go-ahead for the Sukau bridge was confirmed.

Of course, the eco-destination Sukau pioneer said: “I am disappointed that the proposal had gone through”.

But with no more State authority on hand, Lingham invoked the only feeble optimism left to him: “I think all is not lost but the authority must not bulldoze the project without making sure that all stakeholders are given the opportunity to put their idea into effect.”