The view from within Niah Caves. File Photo
KUCHING: The facilities at Niah Cave will be upgraded as part of efforts to make the site a leading tourist attraction.
Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Johari Tun Openg said Niah Cave has the potential to become a world attraction as the latest palaeoanthropological evidence shows that the caves had sheltered early humans more than 65,000 years ago.
He said Niah Cave was a “historical success” in the field of research in Sarawak in terms of history.
“Last Monday, myself and my colleagues went to Niah cave. While there, we were told that human settlement in Niah Cave started about 65,000 years ago.
“On record, the earliest known human settlement in the world was about 40,000 years ago, but Niah has got evidence to show that human settlement there began about 65,000 years ago,” he said at the Stakeholders Consultation on the Proposed Forestry Policies opening ceremony here today.
Abang Johari said given that there was sufficient evidence to show that early humans settled there more than 65,000 years ago, the Sarawak government has to maintain the national forest around Niah.
He assured that there would be no quarry activities at Niah as the government wanted it to become a world attraction.
“I am going to upgrade the facilities in Niah Cave while waiting for it to be inscribed as a World Heritage Site,” he said.
Sarawak, through the federal government, had nominated Niah Cave as a United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (Unesco) World Heritage Site in 2010.
It is important to have the cave listed as a World Heritage Site to embody the diversity of the planet and the achievements of the people, he said.
World Heritage Sites are places of beauty, wonder, mystery, grandeur, memory and meaning and represent the best the Earth has to offer.
The Gunung Mulu National Park, which boasts the world’s largest natural cave chamber, is the only certified Unesco World Heritage Site in Sarawak.