Guest guest Posted September 8, 2002 Report Share Posted September 8, 2002 The New Straits Times Four more national parks for Johor - Thursday, August 22, 2002 By ZUHRIN AZAM AHMAD SEGAMAT: The state government has gazetted four more areas, with a combined size of 20,320 hectares as national parks, making Johor the state with the highest number of such parks. The new parks are Gunung Ledang National Park, Tanjung Piai Johor National Park, Pulau Kukup Johor National Park and National Park of Mersing Islands. Mentri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman said that with gazetting of the new areas in the last two years, the state now had an impressive 66,225ha of national parks. " This is the manifestation of our various efforts to conserve forests in the state. It was not an easy task to gazette a huge piece of forested land as a national park because in some areas there were orang asli who had to be relocated. This by itself is already a major obstacle,'' he said after launching the Endau-Rompin Expedition at the Selai Orang Asli settlement in Bekok here on Tuesday. The year-long scientific expedition involves more than 50 scientists from Universiti Malaya and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Abdul Ghani said while conservation efforts should go on, the government would like to see the national parks contribute to the state's coffers. " We recognise that eco-tourism has vast potential, with people around the world spending some US$230bil on it. I think it is quite okay for us to make some money from our natural heritage. " For that, we have allocated about RM15mil to build and upgrade facilities in our national parks to cater to the expected increase of visitors. " But we will ensure that it will be controlled development, " he added. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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