KUCHING, Feb 21 — Sarawak needs to update its archaic laws to prevent smugglers from taking its rare animals and plant life out of the country, state Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah said today.
He said there have been past incidents where foreigners who entered as tourists smuggled out rare plants filched from the national parks to profit from Sarawak’s biodiversity.
“They did the packing, took the plants out of Sarawak, did the tissue culture, started producing their own and registered those plants under their names to make money,” he told reporters after launching the inaugural Borneo International Garden Expo Sarawak 2023 at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching here.
“These are the little things, I hope, those who are in the fields including the media will play their part to create an awareness to build this up so that the state government will come out and tighten our laws,” he added.
He recalled a group of Russians who were caught with “so many plastic bags” of pitcher plants taken from Gunung Gading National Park and Kubah National Park a few years back.
He said no action was taken against the Russians because the laws against taking plants from the national parks were weak.
“Our laws are so archaic and so the Russians were released after giving all kinds of excuses,” he said.
He said Sarawak is a melting pot for rare and exotic plants “so we need to tighten our laws”.
“If we are not careful, a lot of our rare plants will be taken out.
“You need to go to Singapore, take a look around the Gardens by the Bay and if you make an effort to see where they are coming from. Some come from Lundu and other places in Sarawak.
“It means that somebody must have been exporting them and making money out of it,” he said.
He said there is no need for the state to create its own garden for rare and exotic plants, saying that the whole of it is already a jungle itself.
“We just need to preserve our national parks,” he said, adding that out of 46 national parks, 14 of them are open to the public.
He said this is a reason why the state is gazetting many areas as national parks. “Once the parks are gazetted, you cannot chop the trees, kill animals and cannot take out the flora and fauna.
“But there is always the issue, that is, the lack of enforcement,” he said, adding that gazetting the national parks alone is insufficient if the enforcement is poor.
He said people will still chop the trees, kill animals and take out flora and fauna.
