SANDAKAN: Despite extensive landscape changes in the past, including the introduction of agriculture to reverse the overdependence on timber, some 60 percent of Sabah still remains under forest cover, state Forestry Department Director Datuk Sam Mannan said.
The rate of deforestation between 1970 and 2010 was about 0.5 percent a year, with its height being between 1990 and 2000 during the oil palm cultivation boom, which unfortunately also saw a direct correlation between the number of Orang Utans being sent to the rehabilitation centre in Sepilok, he said.