KOTA KINABALU: Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun wants the Sabah Wildlife Department officers to buck up when enforcing the law on poaching.
“I have called the Sabah wildlife officers (and) I have told them in no uncertain terms that you must pull up your socks. I know they are shorthanded but that is not a good excuse,” Masidi said, adding that some of the officers were doing a good job.
“We hope we will be able to reorganize the Sabah Wildlife Department this year to make it more efficient (and) more effective in the enforcement of the law,” he said after launching the state-level World Wetland Day 2015 at the KK Wetland in Likas here yesterday.
The minister was commenting on the worries of non-governmental organisations about poaching activities in the state.
“Yes, I agree poaching is serious and there seems to be not much fear among illegal hunters. It can only mean one thing, our enforcement needs to be beefed up.
“I can’t say that the police are not doing their job (and) I think this is the job for everyone. We cannot just be dependent on the law enforcers. What is important is the public need to open up. If they find any evidence that people are involved and they know the identity of the people, they should speak up.
“We should not have any fear to tell people who are involved be who they are. Even if Masidi Manjun is caught, this should be made public. In the issue of enforcement there should be no fear or favour. That is the only way we can curb poaching,” he stressed.
Masidi added, “I am not making allegations but I do hear people saying that if they are your friends they can get away with it. So who are ‘they’? Sometimes I am taken aback because people say there is no poaching of wildlife but when you go to the tamu, wild meat is being sold openly.”
He also pointed out that some politicians are complaining and claim that hunting wildlife is a native culture.
But, Masidi said, the natives’ culture is to hunt what they want to eat.
“Now it is no culture of anyone to sell wildlife meat. If they hunt for personal consumption, we understand but how come they are selling the wild meat in huge amount if it is supposedly for personal consumption?” he questioned.
Masidi also stressed that the Wildlife Department is not here to make life difficult for the people in the interior but he said, most of the poachers are not the natives, they are people who see it as a profession, as an income and that is the issue at hand.
On the steps the department should implement as preventive measures to curb poaching, Masidi replied that it would be done once the new State Wildlife Department director is appointed.
“Give me some time (as) the new director has yet to be appointed. Give me a month after the appointment. I will issue a press statement. But suffice to say that we need officers who respect the law and will not hesitate to enforce the law irrespective of who is involved,” he said.
Meanwhile in his speech earlier, Masidi said his ministry had allocated RM50,000 to KK Wetlands and RM2,000 each to the 12 schools involved in the program yesterday.
The allocation was to allow the Sabah Wetlands Conservation Society (SWCS) to implement its various activities involving mangrove swamps and to improve the organisation’s services in the conservation and rehabilitation of mangroves for the future generation.
Among the schools involved in the event yesterday were Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Likas, SMK Agama Kota Kinabalu, SMK Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu, SM Stella Maris, SMK Tebobon, SMK Taman Tun Fuad, Sekolah Menengah(SM) La Salle, SM Maktab Sabah, SMK Agama Tun Ahmadshah, SM All Saints, SM Shan Tao and SMK Perempuan Likas.
“The RM2,000 given to the schools will be used to increase the students’ awareness about the importance of mangrove swamps and at the same time for rehabilitation projects. This is in line with the objective of the program to create public awareness and getting them involved in protecting the mangrove swamp here.
“This at the same time will make Kota Kinabalu city as a model with the best research, education and rehabilitation program for mangrove as well as a tourism product,” Masidi stressed.
Meanwhile, the SWCS is hopeful to get the Ramsar designation for the 24ha Kota Kinabalu Wetlands Centre (KKWC) by June this year.
“We are hoping and we are confident before the next conference of parties for the Ramsar Convention which is in June this year, we can get the endorsement for the Ramsar site, which will be the seventh in Malaysia and second in Sabah,” SWCS honorary secretary Omar Kadir said at the launching of the state-level World Wetland Day 2015.
Once gazetted, the KK Wetland Centre will be the first urban wetland in the state.
Omar said the delay to the gazette was due to a change in the application system for the Ramsar Convention.
“Last year they changed the filing system to e-filing and we had initially submitted our application manually. We are getting all the documents done so we can resubmit the application online,” he said, adding that the transition took place from the middle of last year onwards and it has become mandatory.
“By no using paper we are saving trees. It is supposed to be more efficient, easier to update and easier for the public to access the information. Unfortunately we are caught, we are one of the wetlands that the approval is pending when the system was introduced and that caused a little bit of delay because training needs to done.
“We have done the preliminary training … I attended with our conservation officer and hopefully the final training will be before the Chinese New Year,” he said, adding, “the Ramsar secretariat was reviewing the hardcopy presentation that our submission was made and that was when the transition starts coming in for the online system. Their own staff also need to go for training as well”.
He also disclosed that the State cabinet had endorsed the proposal to have the KK Wetlands gazetted as a Ramsar Convention site on March 6, 2013 while the federal cabinet’s endorsement was obtained in December 2013.
Meanwhile, SWCS president Datuk Zainie Aucasa in his speech earlier said that among their main objective was to increase public awareness about rehabilitating wetlands in Sabah.
“As an NGO, we have been working hard towards this for more than a decade. We therefore invite the public to understand the importance of protecting this natural resource from any form of pollution,” he stressed.
Touching on the participation to the program, Zainie said that the public, especially younger generation’s interest in environmental conservation is reflected in the growing attendance of the annual event.