{"id":587,"date":"2008-01-17T08:43:47","date_gmt":"2008-01-17T08:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/?p=587"},"modified":"2023-12-24T23:43:02","modified_gmt":"2023-12-24T15:43:02","slug":"push-for-oil-palm-putting-sabahs-biodiversity-at-risk-un-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/push-for-oil-palm-putting-sabahs-biodiversity-at-risk-un-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Push for oil palm putting Sabah's biodiversity at risk: UN man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kota Kinabalu:<\/strong> Special Advisor to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, cautioned Monday that the rate at which land in Sabah is being cleared for oil palm will certainly reduce the value of its biodiversity.<\/p>\n

Not only that, he said the activity would destroy many flora and fauna species and their habitat, thus reducing the value of the State’s tourism as well.<\/p>\n

Once the biodiversity and eco-system is gone, it is gone forever, i.e. irreplaceable. In this respect, he suggested an overall guideline and strategy be formulated by the State to ensure the natural environment is preserved and protected for future generations.<\/p>\n

He said while development is necessary, the Government has to put in place sustainability.<\/p>\n

Sabah, he noted, had one of the most unique biodiversity and eco-systems in the world that are not found elsewhere.<\/p>\n

“Economic and political forces can destroy the place (if not properly managed). So, it is in your hands to take care of the environment,” he said at the UNDP-CPDS Roundtable Dialogue entitled “Overcoming Challenges and Devising Sustainable Strategies and Programmes for Poverty Alleviation in Sabah” at the Le Meridien Hotel.<\/p>\n

Sachs said the tendencies and pressures for continued clearing of the land, including logging, and bringing in people from outside Sabah to work in these cleared areas is very strong.<\/p>\n

So much so, without clear boundary lines, the state would be in due course over-logged.<\/p>\n

He envisioned if that were to happen, Sabah’s natural environment would be gone in 20 years. “Some of the last remaining species of flora and fauna that are endemic only to Sabah are very unique to the State.”<\/p>\n

Hence, he said it would be a good policy for the state to be extremely clear about which areas are reserved areas or strictly no development and areas to certain criteria of sustainable use of forest assets and areas for development.<\/p>\n

This, he said should be the Government’s high objective.<\/p>\n

Citing his experience over the last two days here, Sachs, who is the Royal Professor Ungku Aziz Chair in Poverty Studies at University Malaya, said he was truly impressed with what he saw.<\/p>\n

However, he said that wrong choices could destroy the environment in a short period, especially with the availability of technology these days.<\/p>\n

On poverty in Sabah, Sachs said that it is not at all time high.<\/p>\n

“The poverty rate is declining in Sabah over time because 30 or 40 years ago almost the entire much smaller population was below the poverty line.<\/p>\n

“It is not that poverty is getting worse, it just relatively higher than elsewhere in Malaysia,” he said.<\/p>\n

Of the dozens of countries he had been to in the world, he said Malaysia is making more efforts to address extreme poverty compared to any other.<\/p>\n

“Credit should be given to the State and Federal governments for their efforts because I’ve worked in a lot of poor countries where there’s no targeted efforts at all,” he said.<\/p>\n

These countries, he said do not even have proper data.<\/p>\n

In Malaysia, he said the settlers’ scheme through Felda and Felcra mooted for almost half a century ago, has helped the people a lot.<\/p>\n

Having said that, he said there still a lot of challenges the government is facing and that there is no easy solutions.<\/p>\n

Sachs said Sabah could expect continued migration from rural areas to towns and cities in the future.<\/p>\n

This factor, he said should be taken into account because it tends to be more complicated when lots of poor people move across the borders from the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere.<\/p>\n

He said the government ought to use its health services to help the people make good choices about raising families.<\/p>\n

In the short term, he said the solution would be to cut down more trees and plant more oil palm and rubber.<\/p>\n

“The logic of that in the short term is impeccable but in the long term, it can be very destructive,” he said.<\/p>\n

And given the beauty and value of the unique ecosystem in Sabah, Sachs said it should be a major focus.<\/p>\n

The international community, he said should help the state find sustainable strategies so that the natural environment is preserved for people here and from around the world.<\/p>\n

Stressing Norway and Costa Rica, he said the two are resource-rich nations but protect their resources fiercely while at the same time exploiting them.<\/p>\n

“Sabah is one of the most unique place on the entire planet. I want to make sure that my children can come and bring their children to see the orang utan, proboscis monkey and sea turtles,” he said.<\/p>\n

Source: Daily Express, 8 Jan 2008<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kota Kinabalu: Special Advisor to United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, cautioned Monday that the rate at…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"featured_post":[],"class_list":["post-587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5157,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587\/revisions\/5157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587"},{"taxonomy":"featured_post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.borneoecotours.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_post?post=587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}