Taman Negara, or National Park (literally translated), is by far the largest
and most important conservation area in Malaysia, besides being its oldest
national park. Established in 1938-39, the official given size is 434,350ha.
I say "official" because being so large, the boundaries haven't really
been surveyed and it's for certain loggers have hopped into the forest
and illegally felled trees when the forests surrounding Taman Negara's
boundaries were logged. Most of the forest surrounding the park boundary
along the eastern and northern boundary have already been cleared for oil
palms, making the park vulnerable to human intrusion.
Taman Negara has often been touted as the oldest rain forest in the world
at 130 million years old, but I think that is a misnomer. In the space
of 130 million years, many climatical changes would have occured, forest
fires may have happened, various species would have become extinct, and
new ones would have surfaced. Certainly, 130 million years ago or even
20,000 thousand years ago, the forests of Taman Negara would have been
substantially different in nature and character than now.
However, the park was and still is Malaysia's premier nature park. Its
establishment was due to the untiring efforts of the first Chief Game Warden
of the (then) Federated Malay States, Theodore Hubback, who lobbied the
colonial government for 15 years. Originally named King George V National
Park, further tracts in Kelantan and Terengganu were added to the Pahang
area, and the park was renamed Taman Negara after Malaysia's independence.
Taman Negara ranges in elevation from below 100m to 2187m above sea level
at the summit of Gunung (Mount) Tahan, the highest peak in the Peninsular.
It contains every forest type in Malaysia with the exception of peat and
mangrove forests.
The undisturbed riverine forest flanking the Tahan River and other rivers
in the park are amongst the last remaining examples left in the Peninsular.
Rocky Saraca streams of the upper reaches give way down river to
neram (Dipterocarpus oblongifolius) flanked rivers with their majestic
trunks arching over the river. In the montane forests of Gunung Tahan,
an endemic species of palm (Livistona tahanensis) grows, and nowhere
else does it occur.
Taman Negara is the last refuge for much of Malaysia's native flora and
fauna, estimated to contain 60% of the local, specialized endemic mammals
of the Sunda Shelf region, and a very large percentage of the known lowland
forest birds.
Several proposals to log and dam up the Tembeling River threatened the
park in the '70s and early '80s. If not for the efforts of local conservationists,
there might not be much left to see today. As time goes by, the park will surely
gain in importance, as man comes to realise that man and the environment
are interlinked. The question is, will the park survive that long?
Besides Taman Negara, other major conservation areas in Peninsular Malaysia
are the Endau-Rompin State Park, Krau Wildlife Reserve, and the Belum State Park.
In Sarawak, most of the national parks are too small to sustain permanent
breeding populations of large animals. The largest and most important ones
are the Mulu
National Park and Lanjak-Entimau
Wildlife Sanctuary. Two small national parks, Lambir
Hills and Kubah
National Park are unusually rich in plant/tree flora.
Sabah has several good sites but only one (and the last) area of lowland
forest is significant, namely the Danum
Valley Conservation Area (43,000ha). Other important areas are:
