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Malaysia best in protecting great apesWHILE Malaysia could serve as the best example in protecting the great apes, 22 African countries, which are also habitats of the mammals, are showcasing how the close-to-extinction primates could contribute tremendously to the economy. Great Ape Survival Project's (GRASP) Ian Redmond said Malaysia, which had an effective approach in forest management and the only non-African country apart from Indonesia blessed with orangutans, should strive to keep them in their natural habitat as a tourist attraction. "Even if we limit the number of people coming in to observe orang-utans at any one time, visitors are willing to pay top money to go deep into protected jungles to watch these primates in their natural habitat," Redmond said. "People flock to African countries as gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos are found there. "Although sanctuaries can attract tourists, they can't charge high en-trance fees and the experience can never match the real thing," he said, citing the Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary in Sabah as an example. Malaysia is also the most developed among the ape-populated nations, being a role model, especially in forest management. Redmond said African nations should emulate Malaysia's system which proved that infrastructure development did not have to be at the expense of biodiversity conservation. Commending Malaysia for promoting controlled and sustained logging, Redmond said he would visit Sabah next week to study its effective forest management system. For the sake of the great apes' future, he urged African countries to emulate Sabah's forestry code of conduct. The state's move in encouraging timber companies' commercial concerns to incorporate conservation into logging concessions was a positive move, he said yesterday after presentating GRASP's structure, objectives and activities. He urged the global community to protect areas where great ape populations were in a critical state.
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18 February 2004
MTC’s
