RFF has recently also begun working in the Silabukan forest reserve, south of Tabin. Sabah Wildlife Department is also a supportive partner, adds Risch. Key representatives in this partnership include Dr Robert Ong, SFD deputy chief conservator of forests and head of the Forest Research Centre in Sepilok, SFD head Datuk Frederik Kugan and Datuk Sam Mannan, who was chief conservator at the start of RFF’s project. With the aim of reconnecting more crucial areas of biodiversity in east Sabah, RFF is now collaborating with the Sabah Forestry Department (SFD) on efforts to reclaim and restore state land encroached for oil palm. The palms will be gradually removed as the trees establish. Beneath the surrounding oil palms, tens of thousands of native tree seedlings have been planted. After 10 years you will have a lot of tall trees, closed canopy, recovered soil and a real forest link,” says Risch.Ī 1-hectare lake, pictured here with the water almost white, created by RFF on a former oil palm plantation to encourage wildlife to return. “Even after five years it doesn’t look like an old oil palm plantation anymore. Restoration of the first pilot site began in February 2020 and a recognisable forest is beginning to form. Without this intervention, it would have remained degraded and fragmented by the damaging effects of oil palm conversion. This land is now officially gazetted as Tabin Wildlife Reserve extensions and designated as totally protected area (TPA). In total, the NGO has spent 885,000 euros (US$950,000) to buy the 65 ha, financed mainly by its partners Zoo Leipzig and Borneo Orangutan Survival Germany, along with private charitable donations. “It was a new procedure that meant making an agreement to compensate the landowner, with Sabah Forestry Department acting as the trustee and the land being donated to the state government,” he explains. The land is not purchased directly, as only native Malaysians can own such land titles. It’s expensive, but if you want to prevent the collapse of biodiversity, you have to do this,” says RFF executive director, Robert Risch. “As far as I know, we are the only NGO to be purchasing and restoring former oil palm plantations. This was a pioneering step for a small organisation. Note: The Tabin reserve has various extensions, difficult to map, that complete the connection to the Kulamba reserve. This involved buying four parcels of land between 2017-19, the majority of which was still productive oil palm plantation belonging to a local company and a smallholder. To complete the corridor, RFF acquired a key 65 ha area that lay between protected forest. Just over a decade ago, RFF, headquartered in Germany, set out to restore a wildlife corridor between Tabin and Kulamba by lobbying the Sabah Forestry Department to designate and protect approximately 2,300 hectares (ha) of previously unprotected forest land. We need to connect the fragmented forests for the wildlife to move and survive,” says Jain. About a third of the estimated 1,500 remaining wild individuals reside in east Sabah, along with scattered herds of wild Banteng cattle that number approximately 400 in Borneo, according to RFF. It is home to many endemic and endangered species, but their habitats and migration routes have become increasingly fragmented as oil palm plantations have spread.īetween Malaysia’s largest wildlife reserve, Tabin, and another reserve, Kulamba, “there are huge plantations, so the reserves are disconnected,” explains Annuar Jain, project field manager for conservation NGO the Rhino and Forest Fund (RFF).įorest connectivity is considered essential for the survival of species such as the Bornean pygmy elephant. East Sabah, in Malaysian Borneo, is a remote and sparsely populated peninsula, still covered in large areas by protected lowland forest and mangrove swamp.
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