Sarawak government aims to further enhance its eco-tourism, making it an industry bigger than the timber business.
Chief Minister Tan Sri Adenan Satem said serious initiatives must be taken to preserve the flora and fauna for the future generations and tourism sector.
“I believed Sarawak has a lot of potential forest which have not been discovered or fully-studied. “Hence, I have changed the policy and open up all our forest and national parks for all visitors, including the international experts to do their researches and studies,” he said.
Speaking at the 6th Sarawak Hornbill Tourism Awards for 2013/1014 here last night, he said, Conviction Cave, a newly-discovered cave last month in Mulu National Park, likely to be untouched for more than six million years had shown that Sarawak has so much more to offer.
“This make me believed that there are more caves in the region and has the potential becoming the world’s biggest cave complex. “Therefore, I welcome anyone who is interested to develop our forest together,” he said.
There is a phrase “you can’t have your cake and eat it”.
In Sarawak’s case you can’t cut down your jungle, convert it to oil palm, destroy unique and delicate eco-systems, pollute the rivers, kill the animals and fish, envelope the region in a suffocating haze and then expect to market the results for eco-tourism.
Anyone with foresight would have realised decades ago that Sarawak’s real wealth and sustainable economic future lay in its priceless environment, blessed with resources that could have been tapped without doing great damage, not least because of the small populations of people, who were in themselves a delightful attraction for foreigners to visit and spend money with.
But, all that Taib Mahmud could see was the immediate profit for himself from the timber and the mining and he spectacularly abused his powers to take the lot. The present Chief Minister was at his side as a loyal flunky all those years and if he felt pain at this destruction, he kept that to himself till now.
So, it is now going to take a great deal more than a cave to bring people from across the world to a country blighted by an oppressive regime and human rights abuses, with miles of oil palm monotony to greet them from the air.
Yes, Sarawak could partially revive many of its forests and create this future industry, but only if it starts putting the people first and ending the corruption. The real work should start today – ending timber concessions, sharing out the palm plantations, cleaning the rivers and retuning law and order to the state.