Sime Darby gives RM1mil for conservation of Sabah wild cattle

Protected: The banteng is among the endangered Malaysian animals which can be found in Tabin. — Photo courtesy of Dr Sen Nathan, Sabah Wildlife Department.


KOTA KINABALU: Conservation efforts for the endangered banteng or wild cattle has received a boost with an injection of RM1mil fund by the Sime Darby Foundation.

The Sabah Wildlife Department and the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) received the funding from the foundation in line with Sime Darby’s “Big 9” programme to protect and conserve nine endangered animals, most of which are indigenous to Malaysia.

The other animals covered under the programme, for which the foundation has already committed a total of RM80mil, include the sun bear, orang utan, Asian elephant and Sunda clouded leopard. The others are the hornbill, proboscis monkey, Sumatran rhinoceros and Malayan tiger.

DGFC director Dr Benoit Goossens said they had started a three-year project to assess the conservation status and longevity of the banteng in their current locations and to relocate them to other habitats across Sabah.

“To achieve our objective, we will use an unpublished report titled ‘A Faunal Survey of Sabah’ that was compiled by the World Wide Fund for Nature in 1982, which includes a distribution map of the banteng in Sabah and their estimated population sizes,” he said. Dr Goossens said it was the only record available of banteng distribution.

“The recognition of remnant banteng populations is critical to identify the extent of the decline which has occurred over the past 30 years as a result of deforestation, land conversion and human population expansion,” he said in a statement here yesterday.

“Education and capacity building have always been a priority for the Sime Darby Foundation, and as such, the project will also include training of a Malaysian master student and two local field research assistants,” Dr Goossens said.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu said the funds from the Sime Darby Foundation were necessary for their project to conserve and manage the banteng in Sabah. “The project aims to increase the knowledge and awareness of this extremely endangered species of wild cattle in Sabah,” he said.
-thestar online.