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14th June, 2010
KOTA KINABALU: The only place in the city and even in the whole of Sabah where one gets to view live sharks, stingrays, turtles and even hold non-poisonous snakes all under one roof has opened its doors to the public.
The Green Connection, situated at Mile 2.5 Off Jalan Tuaran (near Wisma Wanita) is home to more than 1,200 species ranging from the smallest of insects to slimy snakes and huge sharks.
Its technical director, Professor Steve Oakley, in an interview with the New Sabah Times recently said the centre was set up for education and conservation.
“We built this place so that people can come here and see things they won’t normally see and learn things they won’t normally learn. We want to educate and get the conservation message across to the masses that we need to conserve the environment and its biodiversity,” he said.
He added that it is difficult for children, members of the public and policy makers to go to the jungle to look at plants and wildlife, as well as dive at great sites around Sabah such as the likes of Sipadan.
“So we are bringing the experience to them,” he said.
At the centre, visitors are shown all the glorious animals that live on the reefs and are educated on the importance of conservation and preservation of the environment.
And to make it fun and interesting, visitors get to touch snakes (non-poisonous), starfish, sharks and even handle coconut crabs, which are endangered throughout the world because they are very tasty and easily caught.
Oakley hopes that centres such as theirs will help spur interest in conserving biodiversity, particularly among policy makers as these are the people who have the power to control the destiny of the planet.
“We still know very little about the corals, the rainforests and the deep ocean. There are so many species of plants and animals that are still unknown. And I would not like to guess how many are still unknown, unnamed, never been identified and possibly extinct. We have named less than 13 per cent of the animals and plants on this planet,” he said.
“If you think that in terms of a telephone book, what you do is you randomly tear out some of the pages and keep some of them and then try to look for your friends’ telephone number. The answer is we don’t even know the names of the things that we are losing, let alone how important they are in terms of chemicals that could be useful for us or the ways they interact in the ocean or in the rainforest.”
For changes to occur, policy makers on conservation need to be fully aware.
“Places like these gets the decision makers into a position where they get to appreciate, at least, what you are talking about. Whether they do something for the environment or not is a different question,” he said.
He added that there aren’t many politicians who are aware of the environment and conservation as they deal mainly about people issues.
“Look how long it has taken us to do anything about global warming. We all know now that climate change and global warming are affecting everybody on the planet. It has taken the politicians 25 years. The first scientist was saying that global warming is a reality 25 years ago.”
” It has taken 25 years before it became mainstream enough for a politician to admit that global warming is a reality. And they still haven’t done anything about it. Very little.”
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