Daily express news, 18 September, 2006
Kota Kinabalu: Efforts to conserve wildlife such as elephants and their ecosystems will be further enhanced following the formation of the Borneo Conservation Trust (BCT).
Protem chairman Tan Sri Richard Lind said at present many plantations plant oil palm right up the riverbanks, which inevitably isolate natural forests in the process.
"Even the remaining undisturbed natural forests are sold as soon as land application is accepted. Thus, it is urgent to negotiate the land which has remaining natural forest," he said after a meeting with Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Tan Sri Chong Kah Kiat.
He said the current issues and problems relating to biodiversity and wildlife conservation in Sabah are mainly isolation of protected areas as well as intensive use by oil palm plantations without considering the integrity and continuity of wildlife habitat and ecosystems.
Lind said the plantations blocked the migration route of Borneo Pygmy elephant and also isolated the orang-utan into small habitats.
Back in 1955, when he travelled by boat along the Kinabatangan River, he said he saw hundreds of orang-utans eating berries.
However, as the years passed by, the wildlife became isolated and their migration routes were damaged, resulting in them turning to agriculture and villages of local communities for food, he said.
Because of the situation, a number of conservation-oriented groups worried about the situation started working for conservation.
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