KUCHING: The Ministry of Tourism plans to set up a subsidiary unit involving the Sarawak Tourism Board (STB) and Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) to promote the state’s national parks and inventory.

Its minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg said the proposal would be brought to the Cabinet soon for its approval.

“This subsidiary will look at listing all species available in our national parks and seek ways to promote our national parks as a tourism destination. This can be achieved by rebranding our natural forest reserve to the outside world,” he said at the closing of ‘Kubah Week’ at Kubah National Park yesterday.

On a related matter, Abang Johari urged SFC to improve the knowledge of its forest tour guides so that they could market the national parks as a `living museum’ of sorts to tourists.

“A good tour guide is important to ensure tourists bring home good stories about our state. We really need to work on this knowledge-based tourism product.”

Abang Johari also revealed that Chief Minister Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud had recently told him the possibility of turning the Santubong coastal area, from Damai up to Telok Melano, into a major tourist destination.

“The coastal area has various national parks, such as Gunung Gading, Kubah, and Bako, so it is just a matter of coming up with the right strategy and promotion methods,” he said, adding that facilities and accessibilities had to be factored in as well.

On another matter, Abang Johari chided non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for alleging that the state had destroyed its forests for agriculture and timber purposes.

“The state government is committed to preserving the forest. It had gazetted 800,000 hectares of nature reserve. The state government also aim for the state to have one million hectares of gazetted forests by June 2014.”

SFC managing director Datu Ali Yusop, who was also present, said SFC was working hard on environmental and wildlife conservation efforts, and had programmes which local and foreign visitors to national parks could participate.

“Our ‘Heart2Heart with Orang Utan’ and ‘Sea Turtle Adoption’ programme were among our popular ecotourism programmes, where it allow volunteers to have hands-on opportunities in orang utan and sea turtle conservation works.”

Among the activities held during Kubah Week were photography workshop, Vallombrosa Walk, gotong royong and Borneoan Frog Race.

Also present at the closing ceremony were Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Resource Planning and Nature, Datu Sudarsono Osman, and Kuching North City Commission (DBKU) Datuk Bandar, Datuk Abang Abdul Wahap Julai, and Sarawak Tourism Board chief executive officer Datuk Rashid Khan.

(Source : Borneo Post Online , 29 April 2013)