New Straits Times

Wednesday – January 30, 2008

by Jaswinder Kaur

Kota Kinabalu

Sime Darby Berhad will allocate RM25 million to restore logged over jungles at the Ulu Segama forest reserve in eastern Sabah. Sime Darby‘s 10-year-commitment to the state government, through the Sabah Forestry Department, is critical to rehabilitate degraded forests – home to 4,500 orang utan, the highest concentration of the species on Borneo island.

“The rehabilitation of forests and protection of orang utan habitats is something that we are serious about.

Oil palm companies have been highlighted for deforestation of tropical rainforests destroying orang utan habitats but we are serious in our commitment,” Sime Darby group chief executive Datuk Seri Ahmad Zubir Murshid told a press conference at Shangri-La’s Tanjung Aru Resort.

Sime Darby’s 10-year-commitment to the state government, through the Sabah Forestry Department, is critical for the rehabilitation of degraded forests. Sime Darby had, at the launch of the Sabah Development Corridor (SDC) blueprint on Tuesday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the department to protect orang utan habitats at the Ulu Segama forest reserve.

The company, which has 45,000ha of oil palm plantations in the state, signed a separate MoU with Sawit Kinabalu Berhad to explore downstream opportunities at the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC), including creating education and research and development projects to value add on what the crop offers, such as biofuel.

Department director Datuk Sam Mannan said funding had come at the appropriate time, allowing it to do further work on restoring some 160,000ha of poor condition jungles at the Ulu Segama Malua project site.
He promised that funding would not go into purchasing vehicles or other infrastructure, but that it would be used for greening of logged over areas.

“Ulu Segama is an area of global significance as it is home to one of the great apes, the orang utan, and so what Sime Darby is doing is also something of global significance,” he said.

He said work to restore degraded forests was in tandem with the SDC blueprint which would see the promotion of sustainable management of the state’s resources go hand-in-hand with development.

Logging ceased at Ulu Segama and Malua at the end of last month, as pledged by the Sabah Government almost two years ago at both forest reserves which cover 236,825ha. The reserves, almost five times the size of Langkawi, are located within what the department has dubbed the Ulu Segama Malua project which covers several other forest reserves, including the world famous Danum Valley.

In the last couple of years, about RM25 million has been raised and pledged for the administrative development of the project, restoration of wildlife conservation zones, silvi-culture and wildlife surveys.

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