Sabah To Expand Total Protected Area To 30 Per Cent Of Land Mass

KOTA KINABALU (Sabah, Malaysia), Nov 8 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's Sabah state has pledged to expand its total protected area (TPA) to 30 per cent of its land mass within the next 10 years, Chief Minister Musa Aman said. He said this would expand the current TPA of 1.8 million hectares or 24.2 per cent of the state's land mass. "This must progress beyond mere paper protection and must be managed, including enhancing resources and capacity to protect biological areas especially wildlife species from threats, such as poaching," he said when opening the International Conference on Heart of Borneo here Tuesday. Musa said the TPA expansion needed to carried out in tandem with the ongoing rationalisation of land use for socio-economic wellbeing of the local community, especially those living within or adjacent to protected areas. He said the community must be engaged through various initiatives such as ecotourism and be consulted to ensure that they would benefit from the initiatives. Musa asserted the need to promote good forest management and governance, as well as restore Sabah's forests in terms of its productive and functional capacity. "Huge resources have been invested by the state government, the Forest Management Unit holders and various donors to restore and plant over 600,000 hectares of forests to date, the largest in the country," he said. The chief minister said similar emphasis had been given to the development of land outside protected areas and forest reserves through the introduction of best practices in various sectors, including agriculture. He said one of the initiatives was the Sabah Jurisdictional Certified Sustainable Palm Oil, a 10-year programme launched last year for crude palm oil produced in Sabah to be recognised as Certified Sustainable Palm Oil. "It is my hope that come 2025, all oil palm plantations, both large and small, are fully certified," he added. -- BERNAMA