KUCHING: Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) seized and detained an excavator which encroached into Pulong Tau National Park in Northern Sarawak yesterday, stemming from ground intelligence.
Its press statement yesterday revealed that a SFC team from Miri was deployed upon receiving complaints from nearby villages.
The excavator is believed to be heading to Bario when it encroached on the park, raising fears among the villagers that it would damage the water catchment area which makes up the environs of the park.
Sarawak Forestry is still investigating a report of another machine, this time a bulldozer, which is also believed to be in the same vicinity.
Once located, it will also be seized and both machines handed over to the state Forest Department for further investigation and action, as they may have been engaged in other illegal activities before.
“Sarawak Forestry is pleased that the local villagers are becoming more proactive in detecting and tipping us off with these type of information.
“Due to the many TPAs (Totally Protected Areas), with some more than 300,000 hectares in size, which we are charged with protecting, we need them to be our eyes and ears as with our limited manpower, we can only do so much. Public participation and information is crucial in helping us combat illegal encroachment and wildlife trade in Sarawak,” said SFC chief Park Warden.
Pulong Tau National Park is situated in the Northern Highlands of Sarawak and covers an area of 69,817 hectares.
As it contains among the last of Sarawak’s pristine highland forest, it was identified as an important conservation area by the International Tropical Timber Organisation, which played an important role in its formation.
The Pulong Tau Park intrusion comes on the heels of the ‘Brazen encroachment’ at Similajau National Park in Bintulu which The Borneo Post reported on Jan 31 where a SFC statement said it seized sawn timber from illegally felled timber transported on a ‘modified bicycle rail system’.