Help needed in saving Sabah's rhinos

KOTA KINABALU: Leaving Sabah’s remaining less than 50 Sumatran rhinos to fend for themselves in the wild appears to be no longer an option in ensuring the species’ survival.

State Wildlife Department director Laurentius Ambu said the establishment of forest corridors to connect Sabah’s remaining fragmented jungles thus allowing the movement of wildlife would no longer be of help to the rhinos.

“The rhinos now need a different concentrated effort that is being carried out in Tabin,” he said when launching a workshop on Species Action Plans for Sabah’s iconic wildlife - the orang utan, elephant and rhinos.

Laurentius was referring to efforts in protecting and encouraging the breeding of Sumatran rhinos at the 4,500ha Borneo Rhino Sanctuary (BRS) at the Tabin Wildlife Reserve in Sabah’s east coast Lahad Datu district.

His remarks came a day after the department said it was planning to translocate a female rhino photographed by a camera trap two weeks ago to the BRS in Tabin in hopes that it would eventually mate with a male named Tam captured two years ago.

Meanwhile, Laurentius said the Species Action Plans were needed for immediate and practical conservation actions to ensure long-term survival of the species that were “continously diminishing” in numbers.

He said there was an estimated 40 Sumatran rhinos left in Sabah, another 2,000 Borneo pygmy elephants and 11,000 orang utan - a drop of about 50% over the past 50 years.

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Borneo Highlands Resort cares for the environment

BIRDS represent a remarkable life form. They have conquered the skies, and have adapted to every single environment on this planet, including the vast open seas.

As a group, they exhibit the most diverse range of physical adaptations to their surroundings.

Their powers of navigation baffle us. Their colours and form feed our imagination and their character enriches our lives.

Individually we can all gain from observing nature by learning about birds, other wildlife and the local countryside.

These can be possible at the Important Birds Areas (IBAs), which is defined as a priority site for conservation of threatened range of birds.

This key site is often already part of a protected area, which supports a wide array of flora and fauna.

The IBA programmes began in 1997 with guidance and assistance from the Malaysian Nature Society-Bird Conservation Council (BCC).

There are 55 IBAs in Malaysia with Sarawak having the most, with 22. Others are in Sabah (15) and Peninsular Malaysia (18).

One of the IBAs in Sarawak is at Borneo Highlands Resort, located at Mount Penrissen. With the support of the MNS, the resort was the first in East Malaysia to launch such status.

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Habiba Suites cash in on Sabah’s tourism growth

KOTA KINABALU: Tourism revenue continues to grow in Sabah, with more visitors arriving on its shores, in search of unique holiday experiences.

While most sectors try to take advantage of the currency flow that foreign tourists bring on their vacations to the state, no one is capitalising on it more than the hotel industry.

Lodging homes and hotels of all sorts have been seen popping up, in and around the city recently, providing more rooms for tourists, and thus complimenting the industry’s growth.

But with little concept variation from one hotel to the other – limited often by the location of the establishments – one local company has broken away from the conventional hotel image that line city streets.

The latest player to step into the profit gallery in the rooms market, is Rimaforce Sdn Bhd, with its apartment hotel property, Habiba Suites.

Rimaforce managing director, Habiba Abdullah said the company’s objective is to capture a share of the rooms market. She is confident the alternative concept of Habiba Suites, would appeal to both domestic and foreign tourists.

“Habiba Suites offer comfortably furnished apartment suites for travelling groups who prefer a quiet, peaceful environment over the busy atmosphere of hotels along the city streets.

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Sabah wildlife officials to trap rhino for breeding

Malaysian wildlife officials on Wednesday said they plan to trap a rare female Borneo rhino caught on camera to mate with a lone male rescued two years ago.

"This particular female rhino is targeted for capture in order to provide a mate for our lone male rhino, Tam, who was captured in August 2008," Laurentius Ambu, Sabah Wildlife Director said in a statement.

Officials said captive breeding was the only way to prevent extinction of the wild rhino, under threat from poaching.

The wild female rhino was spotted by remotely-set camera traps in eastern Sabah a few weeks ago. It followed the release on April 21 of an image of a possibly pregnant female in a another part of the state.

"Sabah now represents the last hope of saving the species in Malaysia and in Borneo," John Payne, chief executive officer of the Borneo Rhino Alliance (Bora).

Bora is assisting Sabah in the development of the Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in the Tabin Wildlife Reserve and providing security against poaching.

Sen Nathan, rhino conservation programme coordinator said poachers were the number one enemy of the rhinos.

"We have reached a stage now where even habitat loss is not so much the main reason for extinction, rather the ruthless hunting of the last few remaining individuals, to supply ridiculous markets for horns, bones and other body parts.

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Sarawak plans to build memorial in honour of Wallace

THE Sarawak Government plans to erect a memorial at Santubong in honour of naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace who had contributed greatly to Sarawak’s natural history collections.

“As you know, the theory of natural selection does not exclusively belong to Darwin because Alfred Wallace was also thinking of natural selection.

“The place where he was pondering over his collection of research of flora and fauna of Sarawak is still there in Santubong,” he said at the opening of the Borneo International Conference on Language and Literature 2010 here yesterday.

He hoped to have the memorial erected when funds are available.

Wallace arrived in Sarawak at the invitation of Rajah Sir James Brooke in 1854 and spent the 15 months exploring and collecting enormous specimens of flora and fauna.

The specimens included 2,000 beetle species, 1,500 moth species and 1,500 other insect orders along the Sarawak River valley from Santubong to Bau as well as the peat swamps of Simunjan.

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