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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's plan to build a series of hydroelectric dams on Borneo island threatens the World Heritage status of a key national park, environmentalists warned Wednesday.
Parts of Mulu National Park in Sarawak state would be flooded if the proposed 220 megawatt hydropower plant on the Tutoh river went ahead, said Swiss-based group the Bruno Manser Fund (BMF).
Activists warned the damage would change the boundary of the park, which could see its World Heritage status revoked under the regulations of UN cultural body UNESCO.
The sensitive 52,864 hectare park contains some 3,500 species of plants with 109 species of palms, according to the UNESCO website.
The park is dominated by Gunung Mulu, a 2,377 metre high sandstone pinnacle containing at least 295 kilometres of explored caves that are home to millions of cave swiftlets and bats, it said.
"One of the requirements under the heritage site listing is that no boundary changes should be done in the area without prior consent from UNESCO," said Gurmit Singh, chairman of the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development Malaysia.
"It has asked the Malaysian government to clarify this but they have not received a reply so far and it has been a month," he said.
"If there is a change without consent... then UNESCO can revoke the heritage site listing for the park," he added.
The proposed Tutoh dam by state energy firm Sarawak Energy Berhad is part of plans for 12 new hydroelectric projects in Sarawak from 2008 to 2020.
BMF said ethnic groups who live in the national park would have to be relocated if the project went ahead.
"If these plans were to be realised, several thousand natives would lose their traditional lands in the Bornean rainforest and would have to be relocated," it said in a statement.
Malaysia already faces fierce criticism over the environmental impact of another dam project in Sarawak, which involves flooding an area the size of Singapore island.
- AFP/yb
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