| |
|
MESCOT is a community-based conservation and ecotourism initiative established in 1997 in the Lower Kinabatangan River region of Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. This region and its lowland rainforests are recognized as critical for conservation of biodiversity in Sabah. Sadly, due to over-logging, land conversion to palm oil, deforestation and forest fires, this area has been severely degraded and fragmented and the wildlife is in danger.
The MESCOT initiative formed at the height of the illegal logging era, with an immediate aim to relieve pressure on remaining forest resources and address rural poverty in the area by developing alternative and sustainable income sources and empowering local communities to protect their cultural and natural heritage and to take responsibility for conservation of the forest. After volunteers helped fight the drought-induced fires in the area in 1998, MESCOT established a second key objective to take direct and immediate action to restore and protect the lowland rainforest of the Kinabatangan as critical habitat for the endangered orang-utan as well as other threatened species of wildlife. MESCOT strives to tie these two aims together by channelling income generated by the ecotourism activities back to the forest resource to fund reforestation and habitat restoration work. In addition, the ecotourism activities should generate increased pressure to conserve the rainforest and wildlife in the region. |
|
