Joint application of Danum, Maliau and Imbak for Heritage status

Kota Kinabalu: Preliminary work on nominating Danum Valley, Maliau Basin and Imbak Canyon as a World Heritage Site, has begun following a one-day workshop organized by the Sabah Foundation, here, Tuesday.

The workshop called Nomination Process of World Heritage Site is held to discuss the sites' strengths and identify it in accordance to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) Outstanding Universal Values criterion.

According to a member of the nomination draft working group under the Steering Committee, Dr Waidi Sinun, the workshop resolution could influence the IUCN dossier draft, which is part of the first step in the World Heritage Site nomination processes.

"The Committee is in the midst of preparing the criteria to be included in the dossier and we are working on the details.

"So we are at the dossier nomination drafting stages, the working group has prepared a paper on the criteria so we need to discuss it today and for us to adopt it and submit it to the government," he said.

Sinun said the 133,000 ha sites would be nominated in a single heritage site which will be called DaMaI, an abbreviation of Danum Valley, Maliau Basin and the Imbak Canyon.

He said, however the DaMai is only an unofficial name tentatively agreed to by the Government after the committee had submitted about six names.

Currently the Nomination Draft Group members are Dr Fatah Amir, Dr Jamili Nais (Chairman), Dr John Tay, Dr Rahimatshah Amat, Dr Robert Ong including Sinun.

The group is also aided by Dr Kanehiro Kitayama from University of Kyoto and Dr Glen Reynolds from the Royal Society of Danum and consultant Dr Agnes Agama.

Although the workshop's resolution is not part of the formal IUCN nomination process, it is still vital since it gathers the thoughts of many individuals representing the public's interest.

There are about seven stages under the IUCN World Heritage nomination process and the State Government has already appointed a Steering Committee, solely to work on the matter.

The Steering Committee, chaired by the State Secretary, formed a Technical Committee, which consists of the Nomination Draft working group given the task to draft the nomination dossier.

The Technical Committee meanwhile is chaired by the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment's Permanent Secretary while the nomination draft group consists of experts from Sabah Foundation, Sabah Parks and relevant parties, who are working on a pro-bono basis in the committee.

According to Sainun, the nomination draft group was tasked with drafting the dossier, which would lead to other subsequent steps laid out earlier in a presentation by a representative from the Department of National Heritage, Mohd. Shahrin Abdullah.

According to Shahrin the process would take at least two years.

The workshop was attended by some 60 officials from Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Environment, Sabah Parks, Sabah Foundation, Pacos Trust, WWF and others.

GreenSabah says:I do hope that Danum Valley, Maliau Basin and Imbak Canyon will be successfully nominated as World Heritage Site, the Sabah government and environmental bodies have made efforts to conserve our nature especially these 3 areas.