Birders urge to reroute Pan Borneo highway to avoid Tawai forest Sabah

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah government has been urged to seriously look at alternative routes instead of pushing the Pan Borneo highway through the biodiversity rich Tawai Forest Reserve in the Telupid district.

The call was made during the recently concluded 12th Asia Bird Fair 2023 (ABF) here where both locals and international bird watchers urged the government to look at other proposed alternatives for the Pan Borneo road.

Some 150 birders from 18 countries attending a forum on “conservation”, were told about the need to protect Tawai Forest Reserve where the once thought to be extinct Bornean peacock-pheasant (Polyplectron schleiermacher) was rediscovered recently.

They said the forest protection was not only for the pheasants but for the rich wildlife within the Tawau forest reserve.

Conservationists are urging government torealign the the proposed Pan-Borneo Highway out of the Tawai Forest reserve and look at alternative routes available.

The panellists during the forum were Danau Girang Field Centre director Prof. Dr Benoit Goossens, Bring Back Our Rare Animals (BORA) executive director Datuk Dr John Payne, the Sandakan Borneo Bird Club.

The session was moderated by Ecotourism and Conservation Society Malaysia (ECOMY) Andrew Sebastian, who was also the executive committee of ABF.

Prof Goossens informed the forum that the Coalition Humans Habitats Highways (3H) had submitted their stand in March 2020 under the title “Optimal Routing Options for the Telupid Section of the Pan Borneo Highway.”

“The current alignment of the Telupid section of the Pan Borneo Highway would run through 30km of Bornean elephant range including their usual path through Tawai Forest Reserve, resulting in an endless stream of high-profile harrowing incidents in which people and elephants are harmed on the road, generating public criticism and impacting tourism,” he said.

He also highlighted the Tawai Forest Reserve as a “high biodiversity and high El Niño fire risk area due to its ultramafic geology, so a road would greatly increase risk of fire, smoke and haze as happened here in 1983.

“There is therefore an urgent need to identify alternative routes which can deliver socio-economic benefits without major environmental costs or engineering and financial challenges,” he said, adding that the Coalition Humans Habitats and Highways (3H) had suggested two alternative routes.

The panellist and delegates discussed in-depth the alternatives to avoid Tawai Forest Reserve with an international delegate suggesting legal action to get the authorities to look at realigning the road.

Apart from elephants – the main concern for the 3H statement – “the Telupid Forest Complex is an important mosaic of Forest Reserves host to endemic plants and Sabah’s iconic species such as elephants, orangutans, sun bears, gibbons and clouded leopards.”

The delegates from 18 countries also gave their full support for the government to consider alternatives to the current road.

Sabah Birdwatchers Association, would now be joining the 3H coalition to urge the government to realign the road and protect important habitats and foster a sustainable environment for both human and wildlife.

“The survival of the other wildlife and mammals in Telupid could be a deciding factor in the Bornean peacock-pheasant’s escape out of the trenches of extinction, as there is almost always a co-dependency between wild birds and mammals in the rainforest,” Sebastian said.

Payne said it was important for all species to be protected and Sabah should not be see an extinction like what happened to the Bornean rhinoceros.

“The wildlife voices are not heard and it is up to us to fight for them, to find a solution for a more sustainable future for both our survival and theirs.

“It is quite an irony because our survival will inadvertently be tied to their existence, sooner or later. Some people just can’t see it yet,” he said.