KUCHING: The collaboration between World Wide Fund for Nature Malaysia (WWF) and Tanoti Sdn Bhd can help improve the livelihood of Penan and Kelabit community in Kubaan-Puak area in Ulu Tutoh, Miri and help them get access to goods and services.
Under the Kubaan-Puak Corridor Project, WWF along with Tanoti will not only work of conserving the environment, biodiversity and wildlife but also address the community living in the area as an integral part of the ecosystem and landscape.
WWF Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said today’s conservation was about people in the environment, their livelihoods and their continued existence to allow them to continue their cultural, ethnic and social values.
“We hope that the project may evolve and develop for the benefit of the environment and the people, in this case the Penan community, so that they can generate revenue that can allow them to have the ability to access goods and services that we have,” he said during the memorandum of agreement signing ceremony at Tanoti House yesterday.
Currently, 18 communities comprising of 17 Penan villages and 1 Kelabit village, has been identified by WWF. Their main source of food and resources comes from the forest around them. Among the socio-economic activities carried out by them are collecting non timber forest products such as rattan to weave into baskets and handicrafts.
He said WWF’s focus would be on conservation, community engagement and products that the Penan community produce while Tanoti would help in terms of product design, quality control, marketing and creativity of the rattan handicrafts produced.
“As they are still at an infancy stage of handicraft development, they need a lot of guidance from Tanoti and WWF to make handicrafts and learn to preserve the forest for their own daily subsistence livin,” Dr Sharma said.
The rattan handicrafts can be converted from household products to collectible art pieces. However, it will require quality management to ensure that the products carry high monetary value.
“Products that they make can be looked into for marketing. It is opening up opportunities for them to obtain better lives and natural resource from the forest.
Tanoti director Jacqueline Fong said Tanoti aimed to preserve craft and alleviate livelihood for the Penan through the rattan handicrafts, which could be marketed.
“Their crafts are mostly for their own use. They are not equipped with the ability to create crafts for sale yet, so we want to raise their standards, increase value and quality to sell as merchandise.
“It’s very high impact work that we can do even though it doesn’t look much. They’re learning quickly and are trying to improve themselves.
“We want to able to see them thrive in their own environment and be able to help their future generation and at the same time make sure that the forest survive,” she said in her speech.
She said the forest community can continue to live their lives and be able to access to important services like education and healthcare when they obtain money from the sales of their handicrafts. It can be used to buy uniform and pay transportation for their children to attend boarding schools.
The collaboration will officially start from now and will go on for two years. Universiti Malaysia Sarawak has also joined in the project by providing design and technical input.
Started in 2013, the Kubaan-Puak project site spans 360,000 hectares, covering multiple forest management units between Mulu National Park and Pulong Tau National Park in Sarawak.
As part of the Heart of Borneo Trilateral Corridor Initiative as endorsed by the governments of Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia, the project creates a landscape connectivity from Brunei, Sabah, Sarawak and Kalimantan.
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