Sarawak paved its way forward by taking crocodile conservation management to the next level and gathered prominent crocodile technical experts around the world in Kuching for a 3-day International Crocodile Conference since yesterday.  YB Tan Sri Datuk Amar Haji Adenan Haji Satem, Minister in the Chief Minister’s Office, who is also the Minister of Special Functions expressed his concern and hoped that this important Conference would bring forth the strategic recommendations on mitigating critical issues related to the management of human-crocodile conflicts. He said, “This forum should be fully utilized to provide the venue for capacity building on crocodile conservation and research activities, especially for the members from the developing countries.”

Tan Sri Adenan Satem stressed that Sarawak’s system of totally protected areas is aimed to conserve in perpetuity the Sarawak species of flora and fauna, and to have representative of all habitat types, all values and wide ranges of uses.  “This, at the same time will also provide venues for tourism, recreation, resources for local communities and environmental protection” he added.  The ordinances have been revised and amended many times for the past 50 years, in order to strengthen and also to suit and adopt the international requirements.  He added, “We have constantly been looking into the many needs of upgrading and enhancing our workforce and also look into the needs of the local communities. With these ordinances, the local communities are given the right to make a living out of the resources within the totally protected areas.“ This has resulted in the granting of the locals rights and privileges to use resources within totally protected areas and in some cases to reside there.

The International Crocodile Conference is organised from 19-21 October by SARAWAK FORESTRY in collaboration with the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Malaysia and supported by the IUCN – Species Survival Commission – Crocodile Specialist Group.  This inaugural Conference carries the theme – Human-Crocodile Coexistence: Win-Win Formula, gathered more than 100 participants from USA, Australia, Brunei, Ghana, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines and Malaysia.  The 3-day Conference is divided into 6 sessions and sees a total of 20 paper presentations, concluded with a plenary session during which the recommendations will be tabled for sustainable management of the crocodiles and resolution for human-crocodile coexistence.  The main objective of this Conference is to share information and discusson on crocodile conservation and human-crocodile conflict and to refine any proposals to down-list saltwater crocodiles to Appendix II of CITES with technical experts from the East Asia – Australasian Countries and CSG.

Tan Sri Adenan Satem further stressed that Sarawak is committed in protecting and conserving the invaluable heritage and its wealth of wildlife.  He said, “The Government recognized the need to conserve and protect its natural resources since the 1950s, whereby two legislations were enacted, namely the Wild Life Protection Ordinance in 1957 and the National Parks Ordinance in 1958. These two ordinances provided for the establishment of totally protected areas for the conservation and protection of Sarawak’s unique natural resources, either as wildlife sanctuaries, national parks or nature reserves.”

Sarawak has gazetted over 700,000 hectares as totally protected areas to date, consisting of 24 national parks, 5 nature reserves and 4 wildlife sanctuaries, covering approximately 7% of the total area of Sarawak.  This includes the gazettment of 210,000 hectares of water bodies as totally protected areas to protect the marine ecosystem.  The size of protected areas will be increased to 10 percent of the total area of the State as the Sarawak Government has adopted the declaration of IUCN during the United Nation Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) also known as the Rio Summit in 1992.  Adenan Satem added, “It is in our greatest interest to constantly improve our current approaches and innovatively transforming our assets into legacies that will continue to provide beauties, wonders and other services for generations to come.”

Meanwhile, Datu Dr Yusoff Hanifah, Chairman of SARAWAK FORESTRY in his welcome speech said, “Human-crocodile conflict is not a new thing to Sarawak. Crocodiles have always been seen as annoying creatures so much so that during the Colonial days were eradicated in massive campaigns where bounties were offered for eggs brought in or individuals killed.”  However in the 1970’s, he added, the world demand for crocodile leather led to uncontrolled and over-harvesting resulting in a drastic decline of population in most crocodile habitats. Conservationists saw that if the situation was unchecked crocodiles in the wild will be driven to extinction in a short period, thus it was listed under CITES, to control international trade. In response, Sarawak accorded protection status under the state’s law, the Wild Life Protection Ordinance.  The wild population of the estuarine crocodile responded very well to the protection that the number of crocodiles is showing some recovery. However, as the population increases, so are the negative human-crocodile interactions such as attacks on people and their livestock.