Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Sarawak Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah has a positive outlook for the nomination of Niah National Park as a United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) World Heritage Site.

He said he was briefed by those who had met the team from the International Council on Monuments and Sites (Icomos) about the two more stages of inspection to be conducted sometime next month, and another early next year before a decision could be made.

“Still, I believe that they (Icomos) are already satisfied with what they have seen,” he said when met after a press conference on the announcement of 22nd Icomos Triennial General Assembly 2026, here yesterday.

Abdul Karim was responding to a question about the previous evaluation mission conducted by Icomos – an advisory body to Unesco – on the proposal for Niah National Park to be inscribed into the World Heritage List.

“We don’t need to be worried – I believe we should be getting it. Not just that, we have so many sites that we are gazetting as Heritage Sites within the state (although) we are not bringing it to Unesco.

“As you can see, the state has plenty of heritage buildings, national parks – in fact, we have the most national parks in Malaysia, and the largest marine park. The state is planning to gazette these buildings as heritage sites, and we are moving along that line. It is hoped that these sites will be well preserved and conserved for future generations.”

Abdul Karim further underscored the need to conserve and preserve heritage places, understanding that opening up these sites for mass tourism would not align with Unesco’s vision.

“We have to keep it balanced. Whatever we do, in doing promotions, the infrastructure that we want to down there, the gateway to it, it will have to conform to certain requirements as set by the Icomos committee and Unesco. We try to do something like that as much as possible.

“Even with events that we host, we will try to introduce responsible tourism as much as possible. We make sure no plastic bottles (being thrown away indiscriminately) and all that when we host the Rainforest World Music Festival, things like these would be the way forward.

“These patrons, those who come over to our festivals, we always encourage them to join us planting mangroves together, so we are along that line,” said the minister.

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by KEDUNG B KAPONG

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