Abdul Karim (left) tours Paku Rock Maze Garden. Miro is at second right.
KUCHING (Sept 2): Tourism officials and stakeholders must work with local communities and allow them to take a greater role in safeguarding and developing their areas into tourist attractions, said Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah.
The Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts said to revitalise any host community and rural destination, effective partnership and community empowerment are absolutely essential.
“Hence well-designed capacity-building programmes are critically important to rejuvenate many local destinations, especially those in the suburbs or rural areas,” he said at the grand opening of Paku Rock Maze Garden in Bau near here today.
He said Paku Rock Maze Garden is an example where partnership and community involvement are in action and should be emulated in other rural destinations.
According to him, before Paku Rock Maze Garden was discovered and developed in late 2021, it was merely an undeveloped primitive stone forest with overgrown shrubs behind a Chinese temple.
“Although it is located by the roadside of Jalan Kuching-Bau, no one really knew what was in there, except the local community. Even if you used Google Maps to zoom in on the area, you would not see much as it was all covered by trees.
“When I was briefed about this place some months ago, I decided to see it for myself one day. I am glad to be here today,” he said.
Abdul Karim said he was impressed that the development was not just for the garden itself or gaining more visitors to generate more revenue.
He said responsible tourism initiatives are very much at the core of the entire development and that the environmental, social, and economic aspects are emphasised.
“Decisions are made with the community at the centre stage. Facilities and infrastructures are improved gradually to connect visitors to local business,” he said.
Based on the names recorded in the guestbook, Abdul Karim said close to 5,000 people visited Paku Rock Maze Garden in June and July this year.
He believed that more than 10,000 people could have visited the garden as not everyone registered.
“Whatever the actual number is, this is a remarkable achievement,” he said.
Among those present were Deputy Minister for Transport Datuk Henry Harry Jinep and Serembu assemblyman Miro Simuh.
According to a biologist and geologist after a tour of the rock garden on Aug 25, the geological formation appears to be of late Jurassic to Cretaceous origins and remains to be studied in detail.
“The formation is mostly limestone and represents an ancient marine ecosystem that was subsequently located inland with the retreat of the shoreline. Features of erosion suggest rivers, possibly flowing through a cave system.
“Extensive groves in the cave walls suggest that several water levels persisted. The roof of the cave system appears to have collapsed, forming a limestone scree vegetation. Such a landscape elsewhere is known to be rich in biodiversity.
“Animal and plant groups particularly restricted to such habitats as point endemics include aroids, orchids, land snails, crabs, and lizards. The next logical step to understand the landscape would be geological and geomorphological studies as well as biological inventories of these targeted groups of species.”
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