Managing Sabah's Rich Biodiversity Through SaBC

KOTA KINABALU (Sabah, Malaysia) April 8 (Bernama) – Eastern Malaysian state of Sabah is strengthening the management, conservation and regulations of its rich biological resources through the establishment of the Sabah Biodiversity Enactment (SBE) 2000. The SBE, gazetted in 2000 and enforced in May 2002, will be the guiding framework with Sabah Biodiversity Council (SBC) and Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SaBC) as government strategies in enhancing governance of the state's biodiversity. The Enactment, and later with the formal setting up of SaBC, was due to increasing concern and awareness for the need to manage Sabah’s biological resources for the state’s natural environment protection and socio-economic development. According to SaBC director, Dr Abdul Fatah Amir, SaBC’s core activities include development of holistic and prudent biodiversity management strategy and sustainable optimum utilisation in Sabah. “SaBC will also promote education and knowledge of the biodiversity in Sabah as well as traditional knowledge and benefit-sharing of biological resources. We will be promoting the identification of new natural and biotechnological products derived from biodiversity and biological resources of the state,” he told Bernama. SaBC has developed a platform to integrate information on the state biodiversity. The state-funded project will cost RM1.9 million (US$622,236). Dr Abdul Fatah said that through SaBC and UMS, the state goverment has started a two-year (2013-2014) project to explore the state’s biodiversity for pharmaceutical and nutraceutical potential. SaBC is also collaborating with the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) to establish the national Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (MyTKDL). “MyTDKL is to protect the indigenous people's traditional knowledge (TK) associated with biological resources in Malaysia. The library will be used as a resource by MyIPO patent examiners as a referral point in carrying out advanced prior art search and examination on non-patentable literature that deals with TK," Dr Abdul Fatah said. “SaBC has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with MyIPO last year to provide a platform for both parties to develop a mechanism in compiling and sharing relevant information to be incorporated into the MyTDKL.” -- BERNAMA.