KINABATANGAN WILDLIFE SANCTUARY GAZETTED

52_01In the Daily Express Sunday 10 th September 2005 .

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah ‘s Lower Kinabatangan region, home to the famed Borneo Pygmy elephants, proboscis monkeys and countless species of animals, was finally gazetted on Aug 11 as a wildlife sanctuary under Section 9 of the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997.

Under the gazette, 17 parcels of land totalling 26,103ha along Sungai Kinabatangan, the second-longest river in the country, have been declared a wildlife sanctuary.

Of the area, 24,146ha are in Kinabatangan district and the balance in Sandakan district.

In the gazette, the Sabah government also revoked the status of the area as game or bird sanctuary reserves.

The gazetting of Lower Kinabatangan came six years after the State Government declared the area, with its 100-million-year-old forests, a “Gift to the Earth and Corridor of Life”.