Managing Mangrove Conservation and Seaside Ecosystem

Sabah has the largest mangrove forests in Malaysia, with 60 per cent or 378,195 hectares of the country's mangrove forests thriving throughout the state. Therefore, it is imperative that Sabah must have a comprehensive plan to manage these mangrove forests. Thus, on 24 July 2024, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Haji Hajiji Haji Noor announced that the Sabah Mangrove Action would be launched soon.

The action plan is important and crucial, and it will run parallel with the Blue Carbon initiative, a global programme which focusses on the conservation and preservation of the seaside ecosystem for climate and biodiversity challenges. Hajiji said that the Sabah Biodiversity Centre and Yayasan Petronas have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and Non-Disclosure Agreement for a five-year seaweed mapping community project.

The collaboration will spur several positives including the involvement of local communities living in the marine and seaweed ecosystem areas; enhancement of the State Government's Blue Economy initiative; and the birth of a complete and thorough seaweed distribution map in Sabah which will be used as a reference for the conservation, protection and sustainable development of the seaweed ecosystem.