June 08, 2003

By Catharine Goh

The magnificent Mt Mulu National Park as a World Heritage Site in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo is bound to be a breathtaking experience of some in the world's most enthralling wonders of nature.

In fact Mulu's impressive canyons, untamed rivers, serene rainforests, imposing mountains, spectacular limestone pinnacles and magnificent caves rank among the world's most outstanding scenery.

It is impossible not to feel awed by the rainforest, by its sense of history spanning millions of years.

Mulu's forest are immensely rich in plants and animals and is estimated to contain at least 3,500 plant species, about fifty per cent of which are trees and the other half consisting of vines and woody climbers, epiphytes, parasites, palms and herbs.

In addition there are more than 8,000 fungi and an astonishing 20,000 animal species, including about 60 mammal species, 262 birds, 23 lizards and 75 frogs as well as toads.

The majority are, of course, insects, which are estimated to occur in the park while unrivalled wonders of nature abound with thousands of bats spiralling from the Deer Cave entrance at dusk.

Mulu's caves are so long, large and complex that Mt Api claims to be the most cavernous mountain in the world, showing superb examples of limestone landscape.

As such, Mulu is without rival, in terms of karst scenery and its setting in a mountainous rainforest, with many extraordinary caves such as the world's largest underground chamber, the Sarawak Chamber, Deer Cave, one of the largest cave passage in the world, Clear Water and Wind Cave, which are within the park.

Its significance as a World Heritage Site becomes immediately clear from the fact that Mulu was chosen based on all four criteria of the World Heritage Convention.

These criteria require that sites be outstanding examples, representing major stages in earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of land forms or significant physiographical features.

It should also be outstanding examples representing on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals.

Others include containing superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional beauty and aesthetic importance.

Last but not least, it must have the most important and significant natural habitats for insitu conservation of biological diversity such as those containing threatened species of outstanding universal conservation.