ID :
427312
Wed, 12/07/2016 - 10:20
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Malaysia's Sarawak Urged To Develop Traditional Healing Tourism

KUCHING (Sarawak, Malaysia), Dec 7 (Bernama) -- A suggestion has been made for east Malaysian state Sarawak to develop traditional healing tourism. University Malaya Professor Emeritus Mohamed Abdul Majid said this was because the World Health Organisation had described herbal treatments as the most popular form of traditional medicines. "Sarawak's many ethnic groups have a well-developed system of plant-based traditional medicine. These are still being preserved," he said in his keynote address at the Sarawak's Heart of Borneo (HOB) Seminar 2106 here Wednesday. The state has set aside an area of 2.1 million hectares in HOB, a 20 million hectares ecologically inter-connected rainforest shared by Kalimantan (Indonesia), Sabah and Sarawak (east Malaysian states) and Brunei Darussalam. The two-day seminar is about conserving biodiversity through sustaining communities livelihood in the state area of HOB. "Sarawak forests too are still intact while its government is stable and the state is safe and peaceful. "The word "Borneo" will conjure up images of exotic plant life in tropical forests shrouded in rich folklore," he said. Recent researches, he added, proved that living in pristine nature could speed up healing and increase longevity. He said there would be great demand due to the rigours of city life and this would open up employment opportunities. Toward this, Mohamed suggested that a traditional healing village be set up based on similar concept of the Sarawak Cultural village, a state culture tourism icon which preserves and showcases the culture and traditional lifestyle of its Chinese, Malay, Iban, Melanau, Penan and the Orang Ulu communities to visiting tourists. "The healing garden should be planted with medicinal plants traditionally used in South East Asia and with emphasis on Borneo. In addition, Mohamed also recommended that an Islamic traditional healing village be set up to target the Middle Eastern clients in particular. He said a large corpus on 'Tibbun Nabawi' (Prophet's medicine) was available for adaptation or reference. Sarawak should also leverage on its rich biodiversity to set up botanical gardens, which could be a major tourist attraction, a research and development centre and for domestication of local ornamental species, carnivorous plants and ferns, he said. He added Singapore, with no natural forests, had a botanical garden with some 400 herb species and which is a World Heritage Site. --BERNAMA

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