• UNESCO has declared the floodplain around Malaysian Borneo’s Kinabatangan River a biosphere reserve, linking the Heart of Borneo to the Lower Kinabatangan–Segama Wetlands.
• Conservationists warn that the landscape remains heavily fragmented by oil palm plantations and faces persistent threats from pollution and weak land governance.
• They argue that lasting change will require land reform, corporate accountability and stronger coordination between Sabah’s forestry and wildlife authorities.

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Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain, home to orangutans, pygmy elephants and proboscis monkeys, has officially joined UNESCO’s global network of biosphere reserves, protected areas of high biological and cultural diversity.

Covering 413,866 hectares (1.02 million acres) of forests, wetlands, and villages in eastern Sabah, the newly declared Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve (KBR) connects the Heart of Borneo, a transboundary rainforest conservation area, with the Lower Kinabatangan–Segama Wetlands. The latter is itself a Ramsar site, or a wetland of global importance, and connects to the new reserve’s diverse wetland ecosystem, together forming one of Southeast Asia’s last remaining lowland forest corridors that ensures ecological connectivity between inland forests and the coast.

UNESCO made the announcement on Sept. 27, following the 5th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves in China.Under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, the site joins more than 700 biosphere reserves worldwide intended as “living laboratories” where biodiversity protection coexists with sustainable livelihoods.

The designation followed years of consultation among government agencies, researchers and local communities, led by the Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SaBC) and endorsed by the Malaysian National Commission for UNESCO (MNCU). Officials say they hope it will strengthen coordination between conservation, agriculture and tourism actors in one of Malaysia’s most intensively used landscapes.

But while the UNESCO listing brings international prestige, Kinabatangan’s past and present reveal a landscape heavily fragmented by plantations and uneven land governance. Conservationists warn that unless long-standing structural issues are addressed, the new status may fall short of its promise.

An isolated fragment of forest sites on higher ground, surrounded by a sea of oil palm plantation on the Kinabatangan floodplain. Batu Puteh Township and a riparian reforestation site in the foreground. Image by Carolyn Cowan for Mongabay.

A floodplain of rare richness

The Kinabatangan River meanders for about 560 kilometers (350 miles) through one of the region’s richest floodplain ecosystems. Alessandra Markos, senior assistant director at SaBC and manager of the reserve, said KBR encompasses a mosaic of habitats that includes lowland dipterocarp, peat swamp, freshwater wetland, limestone, heath, and mangrove forests.

These ecosystems host 315 bird, 100 reptile, 33 amphibian, 127 mammal, and more than 1,000 vascular plant species, including threatened icons such as the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), Bornean elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis), proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) and Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi), and eight hornbill species native to Sabah, according to the SaBC.

The Kinabatangan is also the ancestral homeland of the Orang Sungai, or “People of the River,” whose livelihoods and traditions are tied to the river ecosystem. The biosphere recognition, Markos noted, helps preserve the Orang Sungai dialect, listed as critically endangered in UNESCO’s Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger.

“This designation redefines Kinabatangan as a living model for sustainable development, balancing conservation with livelihoods,” she told Mongabay.

Persistent threats

Despite its ecological value, about 78% of the reserve’s area is planted with oil palm, representing 22% of Sabah’s total oil palm estate, according to the SaBC.

Markos cited four main pressures: Habitat degradation and fragmentation from decades of logging and unplanned agricultural expansion; river pollution from agricultural runoff; human-wildlife conflict; and poaching and illegal logging.

These threats have restricted wildlife movement and increased encounters between elephants or orangutans and nearby human settlements.

John Payne, executive director of the Bornean Rhino Alliance (BORA), told Mongabay in an email that Kinabatangan’s conservation history shows how political and commercial interests long outweighed ecological ones.

Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) feeding along the Kinabatangan River. Image by John C. Cannon/Mongabay.

“The Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary concept was rejected by the Government of Sabah until 1994,” he wrote. “Prior to that … the general view was that the best way would be to allow wildlife in the region to go extinct in favour of expansion of oil palm and human settlements.”

When the sanctuary was finally created, Payne said, “it was basically crap — wetlands so wet that even oil palm cannot survive, forest so trashed that most former plant species are gone, and all fragmented into over 20 bits of land.”

He said today’s challenge “is to have a programme to improve the Sanctuary lands biologically, and to get some of the corporate-owned land contributing to nature conservation.”

To address those issues, the Sabah Biodiversity Centre is coordinating a Kinabatangan Biosphere Management Plan that unites government bodies, researchers, private companies and local communities.

Markos said current initiatives focus on riparian habitat restoration and connectivity, agroforestry within oil palm plantations, wildlife conservation and human-wildlife coexistence, community-based conservation and ecotourism, and policy reform for palm oil production.

What it will take

For Payne, however, the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve listing offers visibility but little guarantee of real change. “The main point of the designation,” he said, “is to provide the area with a subjectively higher status than previously, and as a platform to advocate for improvements in management that might otherwise have been ignored.”

He pointed to long-standing structural barriers, noting that about 85% of Kinabatangan’s land is under 99-year corporate leases, 10% is government reserve, and the rest under native titles often leased to outsiders. He added that no part of the area is truly community-owned.

“I do not see the corporations happily allocating land to nature-recovery purposes,” Payne said. “They are under no legal obligation to do so.” He also criticized weak coordination: “The forestry and wildlife authorities are not working together, despite what they might say in public.”

The Malaysian government, however, says the new designation offers a formal mechanism to strengthen such collaboration. MNCU executive secretary Ahmadul Mokhtar Bin Mohd Hayani said the commission acts as Malaysia’s steward for UNESCO programs, working with the environment ministry, state agencies and local partners to ensure “Malaysia’s biosphere reserves are scientifically managed, socially inclusive, and aligned with both national and global conservation objectives.”

Oil palms encroach on the shores of the Kinabatangan River, despite regulations that stipulate a 20-meter riparian buffer zone should be maintained. Image by Carolyn Cowan for Mongabay.

“The MNCU remains steadfast in its commitment to monitor progress, support the periodic review process, and safeguard the integrity of the Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve’s UNESCO designation,” Mokhtar told Mongabay in an email.

The designation allows for integrated landscape management, enabling multiple stakeholders to “work together to restore ecosystems, protect biodiversity, strengthen livelihoods, and ensure that conservation and sustainable development progress hand in hand,” Markos added.

Payne agreed that change will hinge on governance reform. “The Sabah government has to find ways to force the big land owners — all oil palm and most big corporations — to allocate some of their land for nature restoration,” he said. “And the forest reserves and wildlife sanctuary must be managed according to an integrated vision rather than by two independent departments.”

He added that recovery requires more than replanting. “Major earth-works are needed to create dry land and lakes out of the current wetlands inside the Wildlife Sanctuary, which are now largely devoid of biodiversity. With dry land and lakes, biodiversity can be restored.”

Banner image: Tourists frequently spot Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) on the Kinabatangan River. Image by John C. Cannon/Mongabay.

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