By Brad Rantayy
MIRI, Oct 2: Bakam Government Reserves has been re-named the ‘Jaul Restoration Model Area’ (JRMA).
The name change was announced during Sarawak Forestry Department’s (SFD) ‘Innovation week and Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) programme’ held at the JRMA where 3,000 trees were planted in the the reserve area covering about 7.6 hectares out of the 240 hectares.
“I am honoured with this recognition that this area is being renamed after me,” said Jaul, who also encouraged private sectors to engage in more collaborations with SFD to ensure the success of Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) programme.
In telling this during the SFD’S innovation week and FLR programme held in the JRMA in Miri on Friday, State Secretary Datuk Amar Jaul Samion has suggested that for starters, private sectors could adopt degraded areas for the restoration programme or provide financial support towards the government efforts in making Sarawak greener in the future.
“We encourage aggressive participation from the private sectors namely Shell, Petronas, Samling, Interhill, Cahaya Mata Sarawak(CMS), Shin Yang Group of companies and Japan-Malaysia Association (JMA) to work hand-in -hand with SFD to ensuring the success of the FLR programme,” he said, adding that aggressive participation from private sectors could help increase state revenue in future.
“To enhance this programme further, we must not forget to strengthen our Research and Development (R&D) for this purpose whereby we must carry out forest restoration research to identify site-species matching and to screen for rapidly growing trees,” he pointed out.
Jaul also emphasized the importance of getting the local community residing near the FLR area involved in the programme.
“We want local community to gain benefit from the programme,” he said.
JRMA is located at about 24 km from Miri city and can be reached via Miri Coastal Road by 30-minute drive.
Also present were SFD director Datu Hamden Mohammad, SFD’s deputy director Jack Liam, Acting Deputy Resident Miri Mohd Abdul Aziz Mohamad Yusuf. — DayakDaily
