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Jaswinder Kaur
New Straits Times On Line
KOTA KINABALU, July 7: Plantation companies should work closely
with the Sabah Wildlife Department to relocate animals displaced
by land-clearing.
Animals trapped in pockets of forests can fall prey to poachers,
warned a paper presented at the second Sumatran Rhino Conservation
seminar recently.
The paper was prepared by PPB Oil Palms Berhad's Sabah general manager
Khoo Eng Min, its manager for the Eco Management Unit Simon Siburat
and Sabahmas Plantations Sdn Bhd's senior estate officer (conservation)
Simon Geh.
"Human resources and logistical support should be provided
to assist the Wildlife Department. It will be more sensible to relocate
these animals to a different reserve as a change in environment
may help," they said in the paper entitled "The Possible
Role of Oil Palm Plantations in Wildlife Conservation." Co-operation
between the department and plantations could be enhanced through
courtesy calls, educational sessions by wildlife officers for planters
and appointing plantation executives as voluntary game wardens.
They also suggested that plantations prohibit their employees and
outsiders from hunting in reserves bordering an estate.
"Plantations should also refuse entry of unknown people into
their estates and gates should be erected.
"The plantation community should be educated to respect wildlife
and cautioned on the implications of all forms of hunting or trapping.
A penalty should be imposed against offenders.
"One contribution plantations can offer wildlife is establishing
conservation areas within estates." The seminar was jointly
organised by US-based SOS Rhino, Universiti Malaysia Sabah's Institute
of Tropical Biology and Conservation, Sabah Wildlife Department
and World Wide Fund for Nature Sabah.
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