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Luke Hunt

It has been feted as The Lost World, a tropical utopia completely severed from human encroachment that has grown undisturbed for millions of years. 
Yet environmentalists have long feared for Malaysia's isolated Maliau Basin, as companies eyed the rich coal deposits and the timber of the rainforests.
Now authorities have taken a big step in securing the remote location's long-term future by nominating the area as a World Heritage Site. 
The decision last week was hailed by scientists and conservationists as a victory for the environment and potentially hundreds of undiscovered species. However, some quarters in the timber and mining sectors were less than impressed.
Glen Reynolds, director of the Royal Society's Southeast Asian rainforest programme, said a listing coupled with significant project funding from plantation group Sime Darby  would go a long way towards securing the forests' long-term future.
'It's super for the Maliau Basin,' he said. 'It gives an extra layer of protection to what is one of the most important habitats, certainly on the island of Borneo, probably in Southeast Asia.'
 The  rainforests and hills that ring the enormous crater are loaded with exotic species, alongside orang-utans,  pigmy elephants, rhinoceros and clouded leopards.
But what is inside the basin is largely still a mystery.  It was only discovered in the 1970s and much of it is unexplored.
'Maliau really does comprise a range of really rather unique forest types, one of the last truly undisturbed forests on the island of Borneo, as I say probably Southeast Asia, so it's certainly an excellent candidate for World Heritage status,' Reynolds said.
The basin covers almost 600 square kilometres and ranges from 500 metres to about 2,000 metres deep. Hundreds of waterfalls dot the landscape, including a huge seven-tier cascade at the centre of the basin's floor.
'There's almost certainly many new species to be discovered there,' Reynolds said, adding that flora, insects and possibly new birdlife were waiting to be found.  
Miners and timber conglomerates have long eyed the rich coal deposits that lie conveniently close to the surface and potential lumber concessions in the basin. And, as one observer put it, the decision to seek a World Heritage listing was far from unanimous. 
Politicians and businessmen happily mowed down the vast majority of Malaysia's primary forests in the 1970s and 1980s, making way for rubber and palm oil plantations that have funded the country's economic quest to become a first world country by 2020.
Use of palm oil has soared in recent years as a result. It is also cheaper than other oils and contains no trans-fats, but it is very high in unhealthy saturated fat. It can be found in lipsticks and cereals, soaps, biscuits and salad dressings and in up to one in 10 products on supermarket shelves.
In answering to agitated environmentalists, one former federal minister for mines and primary industries perhaps best summed up the prevailing attitude of the times when he famously retorted: 'What do you want: monkeys or gold?' 
The United Nations has forecast 98 per cent of orang-utan habitat could be wiped out by palm oil production by 2022. Eighty per cent of that habitat has been lost in the past 20 years and an average of 1.15 million hectares of forest per annum has been lost on Borneo between 2003 and 2007.
But changing world opinion, concerns over climate change and Malaysia's dwindling native habitat had prompted a cabinet decision by the Sabah state government that effectively cleared the path for the Maliau Basin to be nominated as a World Heritage site by Unesco.
Reynolds said such a decision would not have been possible just 10 years ago. Coal deposits alone have been valued at 'several billion US dollars', he said.
However, potential riches from eco-tourism and a carbon trading market are evolving into lucrative alternative forms of financing based on primary forests. Local anger over plans to build a coal-fired power plant may have also influenced the decision.
Sabah's tourism industry is in its infancy when compared with elsewhere in the region, but officials want to more than double tourist arrivals to 3.6 million and raise more than US$2 billion a year by 2015.
Sabah's environment minister, Masidi Manjun, says the decision to nominate Maliau Basin proved his government has no interest in disturbing an area that possessed a unique natural heritage. 
 The potential to raise money in the future through carbon trading was also a factor in the government's decision. Carbon trading allows industrial polluters to pay countries with large forests - which filter out greenhouse emissions and potentially  minimise global warming - to keep trees standing.
Governments are increasingly seeing this type of trading as a lucrative means of revenue raising that can be used to fund an economy and protect the environment with broad public approval.
 Reynolds acknowledged, however, that rainforest preservation could only be achieved by including plantation operators, timber companies and miners within the conservation process, as these firms control much of the land across Southeast Asia. Sime Darby, a plantation company and one of Malaysia's biggest firms, is in negotiations to finance a 10-year scientific study of altered forests and their ecosystems and funding is expected to top millions of dollars.
Trees of knowledge
Plantation company Sime Darby is one of Malaysia's biggest firms
It is spending millions of dollars to fund a scientific study of forests that will continue for this number of years: 10



Greens hail deal to protect Borneo's pristine 'Lost World'