Threats in Kinabatangan
Kinabatangan's natural treasures at risk
© WWF-Canon / Caroline PANG
The past five decades have been a period of intensive change in the lower Kinabatangan. In the 1950s, being relatively accessible, the region became the focus of commercial logging activity. And since the mid-70s, there has been a steady shift towards large-scale conversion to monocultural cash crops.
Forest conversion means habitat loss
Thousands of hectares of commercial plantations now cover the undulating lowland hills of the region. By 1996 more than half the area's dipterocarp forest had been replaced by oil palm - a crop which now dominates the landscape.
Landowners key to species survival
Wildlife ranging areas are becoming increasingly fragmented and conflict arising from the intrusion of wildlife onto plantations has become more frequent.
There are only a few scattered protected forest reserves in the Kinabatangan. Although the establishment of the proposed Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary will help consolidate a patchwork of 26,000 hectares with 12,000 hectares of forest reserves to form a narrow forested corridor, the participation of major landowners is key to the survival of many rare habitats and wildlife species.
Water pollution
Effluent from oil palm processing plants, increased soil erosion and the high concentrations of fertilisers and other agrochemicals in the runoff from plantations place a heavy burden on the river environment. River pollution threatens both riverine and coastal fisheries and negatively affects the water supply to the provincial capital of Sandakan.
