Ecotourism the way to go for mighty of Malaysia

Ecotourism the way to go for mighty of Malaysia

The Star/Asian News Network Sabah, Malaysia

The dense forest along the Kinabatangan, Sabah's longest river, offers a breathtaking view of the last remnants of Borneo wilderness.

The river and its surrounding wetlands make up one of the richest ecosystems on Earth. Eager to tap the floodplain's growing nature tourism market, villagers are beginning to open their doors to paying guests.

An air of festivity permeated the air. Children jumped into the lake for a good dunking, unperturbed by the brownish water of Danau Bilit, the biggest oxbow lake in Sabah. The men rowed dug- out canoes into the deeper waters to try their hand at fishing. The crowd cheered them on.

It looks like the whole of Bilit, a village by the banks of the mighty Kinabatangan River, had gathered there for the Baliungan Festival.

The event features the traditional fishing skills of the Orang Sungai (river dwellers), as the inhabitants of the area are called. The fishing method unique to the village, like many traditional practices, had died in recent years but on a morning last month it was revived -- not so much for preventing heritage loss but for the benefit of a group of foreign tourists drawn there by the festival.

Eager to tap Kinabatangan's growing nature-tourism market, the village with a population of some 300 has opened its doors to paying guests. Tens of homes offer homestays to tourists who flock to Kinabatangan to view wildlife such as the proboscis monkey, orangutan, gibbon, rare birds and the estuarine crocodile.

The villagers believe the fishing festival is one of its tourism trump card, apart from the local culture, village way of living and the 420-meter-high Bukit Belanda which affords good views of the meandering river.

The traditional method of using cast net and dug-out canoe is known as merampat in the local dialect. During the festival, villagers in five dug-out canoes demonstrated their fishing prowess which called for teamwork.

A lead canoe moved ahead to scout for fish while the others stayed behind in two rows. Once fish was spotted, the boats moved into position to form a circle which surrounded the moving mass in the water. At the count of three, the fishermen cast their nets simultaneously.

"Our ancestors have always fished like this," says village headman Awang Ajis.

"By working together, we catch more. In the past, as many as 10 to 20 fishing boats would participate in the trip."

Before leaving for their homestays to spend the rest of the day, the tourists helped reforest land made bare by logging, by planting indigenous tree saplings.

"The village folk are happy to show visitors the local culture. Guests will have a chance to follow our customs, such as sitting on the floor for meals and wear our traditional clothes," says Awang.

Job opportunities in the village are few. Many have migrated to Sandakan, two and a half hours' drive away.

Tourism, it is hoped, will bring new opportunities. Other than as an alternative source of income, local involvement in tourism, such as through homestays, can help conserve the surrounding forests.

"The villagers will now have a reason to keep the greenery intact instead of clearing them for orchards or leasing them for logging or oil palm cultivation," explains Caroline Pang, senior marketing communications officer of the Partners for Wetlands Program, a conservation project centered around the Kinabatangan.

"If they don't participate in tourism, how can they see the value of conserving forests and wildlife?"

The Kinabatangan River and its surrounding rainforest wetlands make up one of the richest ecosystems on earth. The area referred to as the Lower Kinabatangan stretches for almost a quarter of the 560km river, and is one of the last forested floodplains in Sabah. Its vegetation ranges from saltwater mangroves to riverine and dipterocarp forests.

These habitats host rich wildlife which includes several species of primates endemic to Borneo -- the proboscis monkey, maroon langur and Bornean gibbon. Abundant in species and vital for fisheries and water supply, the Kinabatangan fuels the local economy. Recognizing the area's conservation and economic significance, Sabah has designated 26,000 hectares as the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary.

Ecotourism has been singled out as one way to protect what's left of the Kinabatangan. Tourism is relatively new in the Lower Kinabatangan. Nature lovers started visiting the place in small numbers in the mid-1980s. In 1991, the first tourist lodge came up near the village of Sukau. Another five lodges soon followed.

The common grouse is that these operators are not locals and some prefer to employ experienced hands from nearby towns. Thus the locals' involvement in tourism remains low. This can result in less conservation interest in their natural resources.

"We don't want what happened at Sukau village to happen here (Bilit)," asserts Datuk Bung Mokhtar Radin, member of parliament for Kinabatangan who himself was born in Bilit.

"There, the villagers are just an audience to the tourism industry. Only 10 percent of them are involved."

The Bilit folk are mainly fishermen and farmers. To embark on their new venture, they went through a five-day training course in hospitality and service at the end of last year under the National Homestay Program established by the Sabah Ministry of Tourism, Environment, Science and Technology. Early this year, they received certificates to run homestays.

The villagers still require help in developing skills in marketing, computer knowledge, accounting and nature guiding. A helping hand could come in the form of the Model Ecologically Sustainable Community Tourism Project (Mescot), a program facilitated by the World Wide Fund for Nature Malaysia (WWF) at Batu Putih, a village further upstream.

Through Mescot, village youths were trained in planning and related business skills. The result is the successful Miso Walai Homestay which has yielded a steady income for villagers.

That the villagers are excited over their new venture in the tourism business is evident. During the Baliungan Festival, they warmly welcomed tourists into their homes.

For the tourists, the event was a unique and memorable experience. For the Bilit folk, it meant sustainability of their livelihood and environment.

For more information on the Bilit Homestay, contact Johri Roy Peritai (010 -8936919 / 019-8690843.