ONE FOR THE MEMORIES: Tourists taking photos from the top of a clift overlooking Teluk Pandan Kecil. Bako boasts spectacular views of the Sarawak coastline which are often accessible by foot or by boat.
LOCALS still lack the eco-respect needed to become responsible caretakers of the environment.
A recent visit to the state’s oldest natural park revealed that visitors’ attitudes towards Mother Nature fall disappointingly short of the mark compared with those of foreign visitors.
During a 1.5 hour trek along the Telok Pandan Kecil and Telok Pandan Besar trails, Bako National Park park manager Siali Aban collected enough garbage to fill a medium-sized plastic bag.
These trails are among the park’s most popular trekking routes because of the breathtaking views they offer.
Telok Pandan Besar takes trekkers to one of the park’s most popular viewpoints on top of a cliff with a stunning view of the beach below while Telok Pandan Kecik takes trekkers down to the beach itself.
However, the trip was marred by the sight of rubbish – mostly empty plastic bottles and soft drink cans left behind by trekkers who could not be bothered to carry their trash back to the park headquarters, despite a number of notices placed around the park, reminding visitors to dispose of their discards in the proper receptacles.
“It’s usually the local visitors who do this,” said Siali as he retrieved yet another empty plastic bottle from under the wooden boardwalk.
“They always try to hide the garbage such as in the bushes or under the boardwalk. I don’t understand why they cannot carry it back to Hq with them. After all, they carried it all the way over here.”
With only 20 full-time park staff who must multi-task a multitude of responsibilities between them
– from registering visitors to maintaining accommodation facilities – it is not easy to constantly keep the park’s 17 trails litter-free without cooperation from visitors.
Even though it is only a relative handful of local visitors who litter indiscriminately, it still reflects badly on local attitudes.
Across the river at the Sarawak Forestry jetty where boatmen from Kampung Bako waited to take visitors across to the park, a group of children were spotted nonchalantly throwing empty ice-cream wrappers onto the ground, despite standing less than three feet away from a rubbish bin, suggesting that lackadaisical attitudes towards Nature are learnt from young.