Zolkipli (front row, fourth left) and CIP coordinator Noraisah Majri (front row, third left) in a group photo with the interns.
Zolkipli (left) presents a certificate to an intern during the ceremony, witnessed by Choo.
KUCHING: Thirteen interns from the second batch of Sarawak Forestry Corporation’s (SFC) Conservation Internship Programme (CIP) for Forest Management Certification (FMC) received their certificates in a ceremony here recently.
SFC chief executive officer Zolkipli Mohamad Aton presented the certificates to the interns, witnessed by Sarawak Timber Association (STA) honorary treasurer Philip Choo Kwong Hui who represented STA chairman Pemanca Datuk Wong Kie Yik.
Also present at the ceremony were representatives from Harwood Timber Sdn Bhd, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas) as well as SFC and STA officers.
The programme was launched by SFC under the umbrella of Research for Intensified Management of Bio-Rich Areas of Sarawak (Rimba), with the inception of the first programme in 2017.
The successful conduct of the second batch was made possible with major financial support from STA, with the objective of training conservation experts in Sarawak to be equipped with the necessary technical knowledge and capabilities.
The end result would see to it that their focus and in-depth training in the field of conservation would enable them to facilitate the certification of Forest Management Units (FMUs) in Sarawak from the conservation perspective in their efforts towards achieving FMC.
The nine-month CIP, which consists of classrooms and in-situ lectures, hands-on learning, fieldwork, and assessment, is viewed by the industry as a strategic investment in capacity building.
Under the Rimba set-up, the interns are exposed to the intense working environment of research work as they collaborated with international renowned researchers on site.
To-date, most of the graduates are employed by timber industry players.